To See Wonderful Things
by sinceyoufellinlovewithme
Summary: A tale of two trips to Egypt for Cora and Robert, one as the young viscount and viscountess, and a second as a 40th anniversary celebration. I promise the traditional angst and longing for the 1880s journey, and romantic fluff for the 1929 vacation.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Hi everybody! No, I haven't stopped work on "Far More," but this is the other story I mentioned. I'll be writing for both simultaneously. Once I managed to process my massive feelings about the Red Dinner, I could consider the rest of episode 5, including that darling grandparents scene. Wait, stop the presses—did they just say they went to Egypt as a young couple? Cue all sorts of Cobert-in-Egypt scenes that started running through my mind.

And here we have the result. :-) I've decided to alternate chapters between a post-series, nostalgic anniversary trip to Egypt, and the original visit during the first year of their marriage. I've never been to Egypt and have no firsthand knowledge of it (so the research my slow my updates a bit), but if you are Egyptian (or even have just visited there), definitely speak up if I'm getting stuff wrong (or if you've just got a great scene idea).

A quick note on the title and the cover image… The title comes from Howard Carter's words when he first stepped inside King Tut's tomb in 1922. His patron, Lord Carnarvon (the real-life owner of Highclere) was standing outside waiting for a report. Carnarvon was getting a bit impatient with Carter, who'd yet to make a truly exciting discovery with Carnarvon's money, and he suspected this tomb might be another dud. He called out, "Can you see anything?", and Carter, who was gazing at all the treasures of one of the greatest finds in Egyptian archaeology, said, "Yes! I see wonderful things!" My cover image was a lucky find on Google. It's from a movie called _The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec_ , which is a historical fantasy set in early 20th-century France and Egypt involving a young woman writer and the resurrection of (friendly) mummies. It sounds both bizarre and wonderful, but most importantly, doesn't she look a bit like a young Cora?

But without further ado, let's get rolling…

* * *

 **February 1929**

She had never been a good sleeper on trains.

Cora sighed as she rolled over yet again in the tiny single bed, her body stiff from the flat mattress. She was cold, too—these blankets were far too thin for a winter's night, and she thought longingly of the fire that would have been crackling in her bedroom at Downton. Never again would she be coaxed on an overnight journey before May, she vowed. Certainly not one on a train, where she was prevented from cuddling close to Robert. She sighed again, imagining herself snuggling against him, her face between his shoulder blades and her arm around his waist, basking in the warmth he provided.

The whole trip had, in fact, been Robert's idea, one that he had first mentioned nearly a year ago, on their last anniversary. "It'll be forty years next year, Cora," he'd remarked as they'd lain tangled together in bed. "Forty years."

She'd groaned. "Heavens, are we that old?"

"You're not," he'd said, kissing her hair. "I'm convinced that somewhere along the line, someone slipped a younger wife in when I wasn't looking. The woman I've just made love to could not have been anywhere near sixty."

"No?"

"No. Not a day over fifty-five, I would say," he said seriously, and she kicked him.

" _Robert!"_

"Ow! I misspoke, I misspoke!" he said, laughing and drawing a chuckle from her, too. "I meant _twenty_ -five. Not a day over twenty-five."

"That's better," she said, pressing a kiss to his jaw.

"I was thinking we could go away somewhere next year."

"You mean, Paris again?" she asked. "We could combine it with Valentine's Day and—"

"No, not France. I was thinking…perhaps Egypt."

" _Egypt?!"_

Robert had been different since his health scare two years earlier—calmer, easier, happier, and also more romantic. She'd taken great pleasure in growing used to his newfound tendencies to whisk her away at a moment's notice for dinner and dancing and the theatre (he'd even condescended to try the cinema a couple times), to find hidden spots on the estate for sunny afternoon picnics, to pull her into her room at teatime for a "private tea," and to carry her off to have his way with her for a night in the empty cottage he'd renovated last summer as a birthday surprise. His retirement thus far had been something of a second honeymoon—only one where they were actually in love. A few months ago, he had splurged on a luxurious, decadent two weeks in Paris, but she'd had no indication that his thoughts were running anywhere near as exotic as North Africa.

"It's not so strange," he said, his fingers tracing over her bare back. "We've been there before, but there's more to see now. And you didn't have a very good time on our other trip. I want to make it up to you."

"I had a good time at the end," she protested.

"At the end?" Robert frowned. "That was when we had all that business with your poor arm."

"And think of all the attention I lapped up from you as a result."

He laughed. "I'll make the whole trip that way this time," he promised. "Except you haven't got to nearly lose a limb." He lifted her hand from his chest and kissed her palm gently. "We don't have to repeat that part."

She'd wondered if Robert—who had not been a man she would have classed as "adventurous" at any point since the girls had been born—might lose interest in the scheme, but his excitement had only grown, and he'd happily plotted out most of the trip on his own, promising a vacation full of surprises.

The first of these had been his accidentally booking a train compartment with twin beds for their overnight ride through the south of France.

Cora sighed. It was too dark to see her husband as anything more than a dark lump in the black of their compartment, but she could hear him perfectly well, snoring contentedly in the bunk across from hers where he had slept soundly for hours. She would know—she'd been awake for most of it, snatching a nap here and there before she was once again awakened by the swaying motion of the car.

What time was it? She hadn't the foggiest. Perhaps she'd get up and put on her dressing gown, take a stroll down the corridor, see if stretching her legs for a bit might relax her enough to fall back asleep.

Cora sat up in the dark, moved to stand, and cracked her head sharply on the roof of her bunk. She could not hold back a slight yelp of surprise and pain, and the snoring paused.

"Cora?" Robert asked sleepily.

She knew she ought to feel guilty for waking him—and she did, slightly—but mostly she was irritated at his ability to sleep for uninterrupted hours. "What?"

"Are you okay? Did you just say, 'ow'?"

"I'm fine. I hit my head on the edge of the bunk, but I'm fine," she said, gingerly inspecting her scalp. She expected an egg in the morning, but at least the stars were beginning to clear from her vision.

"Are you sure? Will you let me see it?"

"Yes, I'm sure, and no, you can't."

"Cora…"

"I mean you _literally_ can't, Robert. It's pitch black in here, and I don't think I could find the light switch if my life depended on it."

He chuckled. "Well, we'll have sun again in the morning, I suppose, and maybe the boat to Alexandria will be better. Why are you up?"

"I can't sleep," she said, hating the whine she could hear in his voice. "I can feel every movement, and the mattress is awful, and I'm _so cold_."

"Why don't you lie down here?"

"Thank you, but the beds are the same—you just fall asleep more easily than I do. There's no point in switching."

"No, I mean, lie down _with me_."

"There's not room!"

"Oh, there's room enough if we snuggle close." She heard him shifting in the bed. "You'll be warmer, and I promise I'm a better pillow than these awful lumps the railroad's given us."

She laughed in spite of herself. "Won't I keep you up?"

"Then we'll be up together. Come on…I've missed you."

"You have done no such thing, Robert Crawley," she said, getting up more carefully this time and feeling her way toward him. "You started snoring thirty seconds after you lay down."

"Well, I miss you now that I'm awake," he argued as she climbed in next to him. "Oh, there you are…"

Cora giggled. "I told you it was dark." There was a moment's shuffling as they fitted themselves together in the narrow space, and then his arm slipped around her. She sighed, instantly warmer, and snuck her freezing toes between Robert's feet. It was softer here, too, she thought, closing her eyes as he kissed her forehead: the mattress was just as bad, but she was leaning against Robert, and _that_ was so comfortable that the bed itself didn't much matter.

"Do you think you can sleep now?" she heard him whisper, as though from a great distance. She wanted to tell him yes, but her eyelids were suddenly too heavy to open, and she was drifting off before her lips could form the word.


	2. Chapter 2

**October 1889**

Cora was reclining in bed in her stateroom, drinking the last cup of English tea she expected to have for days. Egyptian tea, she'd heard, was a mint drink brimming with spices, an exotic taste to match the exotic land where she would soon be walking.

And there it was! She'd opened her window to have it all that much nearer, and she could smell the salty air of the Mediterranean as a cool breeze blew over the water and into her cabin. In the distance, she could see Alexandria, with its harbor that seemed to be reaching out to embrace their ship as they waited to dock. There were minarets stretching above the buildings, and palm trees swaying lazily (how wonderful to have stolen away for a bit from cold and rainy England!), and even the ruins of an old castle…the Citadel of Qaitbay, she remembered from her reading. The fortress had been built some four hundred years ago but had taken a heavy beating seven years earlier in the war that had led to the country's occupation by the British.*

Cora wished she'd arrived before its destruction, but more than that, she longed to have come to Egypt many centuries before, to have seen the great lighthouse that had once stood on the citadel's site. Alexandria's lighthouse had been one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, architectural feats that she had pored over during her studies with the art history tutor she had begged her parents for. Only one of the seven—the pyramids at Giza—was left standing, and she could barely contain her excitement at an opportunity to see them in person. It was an added gift to pass by the former location of the lighthouse.

The ubiquitous presence of British soldiers and officials in Egypt had made it seem easily accessible to the English, a foreign destination that was not too untamed, and it had become a popular destination among the aristocracy. What was popular with other aristocrats automatically appealed to Cora's mother-in-law, and thus Violet had persuaded her husband, the Earl of Grantham, to take the family on a tour of the country. The trip had already been a matter of discussion when Cora had married Robert nine months earlier, and now, after a long journey down the length of France and across the Mediterranean, they were finally almost there. Plans were that they would spend tonight in Alexandria before taking the train on to Cairo in the morning, where they could dive into some of Egypt's best sites. Eventually, they'd travel further south to Luxor.

Cora took another sip of her tea. She was beginning to wish she'd told her maid not to bother with the breakfast that was supposedly on its way: she'd rather Jameson just dressed her straight away when she returned. As exciting as the view had been when she'd first awakened, it wasn't enough anymore, and Cora was dying to be up on deck, drinking in Egypt.

There was a knock at the door, and Jameson entered with a tray laden with dishes. "Here we are, milady…your breakfast."

"Thank you, Jameson," Cora said as she took it from her and arranged it on her lap. "Although I'm afraid I'm not going to eat very much this morning…I think I'm too excited to eat, and I'd rather be up on top." She hurriedly spread marmalade on a piece of the toast.

Jameson looked at her sharply. "Your ladyship must eat! Heavens, this is the last time we'll see real food for weeks! I shudder to think what these Egyptians will try to feed us."

"Really, Jameson, you musn't be so worried," Cora said with a laugh. Her maid had been muttering darkly about the trip for months and seemed to believe she was being asked to trek across a wild jungle with her mistress. "Egypt is British now, and the British and French have both been here for awhile. They'll know what to feed you." Cora, however, was longing not for a rerun of the cuisine she could dine on at Downton any night of the week; she was immensely looking forward to North African spices and fava beans and grape leaves and vegetables grown in the rich soil of the Nile and lamb kebabs and baklava and rice.

She quickly polished off the toast and then set her tray aside. "Please dress me. We're going to be moving again soon, and I'm dying to see Alexandria get closer."

* * *

"You're up rather earlier than I expected," Robert said, coming to join her at the deck's railing.

"Oh, I couldn't possibly have slept in on a morning like this," Cora told him. She knew she must be grinning like a fool, but she couldn't help it, not now that she could hear the seagulls and see the early sun glinting off the sea. "I could barely eat breakfast, I was so excited. Isn't Alexandria beautiful?"

Robert returned her smile. "That it is…but it's not as pretty as you."

Cora dropped her eyes, trying to hide just how much pleasure she took in his words. How she _loved_ it when he spoke to her that way. "You're very kind," she murmured.

"I'm glad you're here," she went on shyly after a pause. "It's lovely to share our first view of Egypt together."

"It is, isn't?"

She nodded, unsure what else to say. How was it that he still made her so nervous after so many months of marriage? She adjusted her now-damp hands on the handle of her parasol.

"How were you planning to spend our only day in Alexandria?" she finally asked, wondering what her itinerary was to be.

"Oh, I don't know. There's not a great deal to see here, you know—not like in Cairo or Luxor.**"

Cora nodded. She was desperate to get as close to the old lighthouse site as possible, but the ghost of a monument that was half a millennium gone did not truly qualify as "something to see."

"I'll go for a walk, do some exploring," Robert continued. "See the pillar,*** perhaps."

"What about where the lighthouse was? Do they let tourists near the fort?"

He looked at her with surprise. "You're familiar with the Lighthouse of Alexandria?"

"Are you not?" Surely an earl's son had been given a classical education.

"Of course I am," Robert said, giving her an indulgent smile. "But who mentioned it to you?"

"I'm not sure anyone 'mentioned' it to me," she said, thinking it an odd way to phrase it, "but I've studied—"

"Robert! Cora! There you are!"

Cora turned to see her young sister-in-law, Rosamund, approaching and sighed inwardly. Clearly, this was the last of any conversation she'd be having with Robert this morning—she sensed that she was about to be pulled away on her mother-in-law's orders.

And she was not mistaken. "Mama said to come and see if you were on deck, Cora," Rosamund said. "She's concerned about the bright sun—you see how the water reflects it—and said that for the sake of your skin, you ought to be indoors."

Before she could protest, Robert added his agreement. "Go on, now." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "You've had your view from the deck, and you'll see it all again when we disembark. We don't want you turned into a red Indian before this trip is over."

Cora swallowed her disappointment and acquiesced, following Rosamund back below deck. She'd have plenty of time with Robert later—she had _days_ of time with Robert. For truly, that was why she was most excited for this trip: she longed to see the pyramids and the sphinx and the ancient art she'd read about, but more than that, she longed to see her husband.

Of course, she saw him every day at Downton, but that wasn't the same. He was preoccupied with his estate work with his father, with the house, with shooting, while she was trotted out to make calls with his mother and to assist in planning for household events—activities that usually ended in mockery and criticism from the countess. The only real time she had with Robert was on the nights he came to her room for their marital duties, a quick, awkward business that reminded her of just how much was lacking in their marriage and in just how many ways she'd failed.

She'd failed to earn her husband's love; she'd failed to even catch his interest. And, most importantly, she'd failed to conceive a child. For in spite of their regular coupling, Cora's monthly bleeding still appeared like clockwork. She was beginning to suspect she wasn't fertile at all and was wondering how long it would take Robert to catch on.

 _Enough of that,_ she reminded herself firmly as she let herself back into her cabin. She was determined not to think of any of these problems on this trip. She could worry about her fertility and her marriage once they were back in England, but they were a world away from there now. She would have Robert's attention every day as they went sightseeing, they would have time for romantic lovemaking (and the _desire_ for it, now that they were in such an exotic place), and he would be able to fall in love with her. Egypt would be like a honeymoon—a replacement for the perfectly miserable trip they'd taken to Italy after the wedding last winter.

* * *

Docking and disembarking was a lengthier process than Cora had anticipated, and thus it was early afternoon before the Crawley party arrived at Le Metropole,**** the gorgeous seaside hotel where they had reserved rooms. Yet surely there was still plenty of time for the stroll about the city that Robert had mentioned, as well as perhaps a visit to the fort, where she could imagine how the ancient lighthouse might have looked.

"Do you think I ought to have a bath first, Jameson?" Cora asked, settling herself on the chaise in her room as her maid began to open her trunks. "I imagine I'll only be hot and dirty after I've walked around the city for a bit."

"You will, your ladyship," Jameson agreed, disapproval in her tone. She clearly thought they should both lock themselves in the hotel until time to leave for Cairo, where they should do the same. "If you're going out _there_ , I don't see much sense in your getting cleaned up."

"Perhaps not…I shall just change out of my traveling clothes, if there's an afternoon dress you can retrieve easily?"

There was, but then there was the endless process of undressing and redressing, and then a matching parasol had to be searched for, and then Jameson fussed over creams to protect Cora's face from the hot sun, so it was no great surprise when her knock on the dividing door received no answer, and she opened it to find Robert's room empty.

 _He's probably waiting in the lobby, gazing impatiently at his pocket watch,_ Cora thought, irritated with how long it took her as a woman to be ready. She left Jameson to her unpacking and hurried down the Metropole's stone staircase.

There were other European travelers milling about in the lobby, but no Robert Crawley, Cora realized with a sinking feeling. Surely he would not have left without her, would he? She let her eyes drift over the classical décor, gold leaf and marble busts that suggested Rome instead of Egypt. But no, she had not missed him. He was not here.

"Excuse me," she said, approaching the concierge. "I was hoping to meet the Viscount Downton here this afternoon. Has he by any chance passed through?"

Of course he had: "Yes, madam," came the response. "About half an hour ago, the viscount and the Earl of Grantham asked for a map of the city and a carriage and then set off together. Would you like to leave him a message?"

"No," Cora said softly. "I–I imagine I'll see him later." And she crept back upstairs to her room.

"Milady? Have you forgotten something?" Jameson asked, still ensconced in the luggage.

"No, but Lord Downton has already left with Lord Grantham." She could not bring herself to say that it was _she_ that had been forgotten.

"So your ladyship hasn't got to go out? A lucky stroke if I may say so, milady."

"No," Cora said glumly, pulling off her gloves, "I haven't got to go out." She couldn't, not now. She wouldn't walk alone in Thirsk as a single woman, much less in Alexandria. And with both of the men in her party gone, she had no options but to sit here all day. There would be no gazing with wonder at the spot where the lighthouse had stood, no exotic thrills as she wandered the streets of her first African city, and, most importantly, no slipping her arm through Robert's as they strolled.

Had he truly forgotten about her? Surely not. Or had he never intended to take her along in the first place? Had he not known how very much she cared about the lighthouse? She hadn't ever been able to finish that conversation this morning…

"Would you like a bath then, m'lady?" Jameson went on. "The road here was awfully dusty." She shuddered. "And then perhaps you could change into a tea gown—there's no sense in wearing a corset alone in your room when it's this sweltering."

The temperature was certainly warm, but it was no worse than a warm July day in London, and thus Cora imagined that Jameson would not take well at all to the desert heat of Luxor.

But she nodded. "Yes, Jameson. Thank you. Please do draw a bath."

* * *

*In the early 1880s, Egypt was controlled by both France and Britain. Then in 1882, there was a nationalist uprising that led to the short Anglo-Egyptian War, which included bombardment of Alexandria and its port. The result was that French influence ended, and the British occupied Egypt until after World War II (with the country gaining a bit more independence in the 20s and 30s).

**This isn't true today—there's actually quite a bit to see in Alexandria. However, one of the things that made Egypt an interesting historical setting was that I realized I had to be concerned with not only what tourist sites had been built by the era of my story, but what sites had been _discovered_. And quite a bit of what you can see as a tourist in Alexandria today had not yet been unearthed in 1889. The city's main museum also wouldn't open for another three years. The destroyed fort Cora mentions will eventually be restored, but in 1889, it's still in ruins.

***Robert is referring to Pompey's Pillar, which was basically the only thing that tourists see now that they would also have seen then. It's a 20-meter/67-foot Roman triumphal column that was erected in A.D. 297. Robert would also know it as the place where a British commander in 1803 climbed up with a rope ladder so that he could display a Union Jack and drink a toast to the king from the top.

****So I'm cheating a little here…Le Metropole (which is still open today) was actually built in 1902. I wanted to find Cora and Robert a beautiful, Old World hotel in Alexandria, and I couldn't come up with anything that was open in the 1880s. Le Metropole, though, is exactly the kind of place I wanted, so I decided to take a little liberty with its construction date.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: This was supposed to be a fluffy, non-sexual chapter as Robert and Cora settled in for their first night in Egypt in 1929. But I lost control of my characters, and because these two have very little self-control, we now have an M-rated story. I mostly blame this on Cora.

* * *

 **1929**

"Is this a hotel?" Cora asked innocently as the driver Robert had hired at the Cairo train station pulled up outside a palatial building of Italianate architecture. She suspected that it was not, and she was trying to hide her disappointment—after docking in Alexandria in the morning, they'd spent a long day slowly jolting over the 130 miles to Cairo in an Egyptian train that had made the trip through France seem as though they'd been riding on glass. Cora was tired and achy and dusty and longing to settle into their room, and the last thing she wanted was cocktails at the home of an acquaintance.

"No, it's not exactly a hotel," Robert said. "It's more of a house."

"And whose house is it?" she asked, forcing a smile and not wanting him to feel as though he'd missed the mark with their first activity in Egypt.

"Ours, for the next few days." Before she could answer, the chauffeur opened Robert's door and he stepped out onto the curb. "Come, my dear," he said, offering her his hand.

 _"Robert,"_ she breathed as she scooted over and let him help her out of the car, "what on earth…have you _rented_ this place?"

"For a song," he assured her, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm. "The current tenant is a chap I was at Eton with—he's a diplomat renting it from the Egyptian owner, the son of the princess it was built for."

"A princess?" she asked. Forty years as an English aristocrat had not cured her of her American childhood fascination with princesses.

"Yes, the late Princess Amina," he said. "I'd originally planned to find us a hotel, but then I discovered this place, and I thought we could do better. Especially," he went on, leaning close to whisper in her ear, "if I were going to be traveling with a princess myself." He kissed her cheek as she felt herself blush.

"And, of course, it comes with staff," Robert continued as he led her up the front steps. They were greeted at the door by an English butler, who immediately dispatched footmen to retrieve their luggage from the car and showed them inside.

The interior was like no home Cora had ever seen in Britain. Not only was the décor even richer—the furnishings and gold leaf were more appropriate to Buckingham Palace than a Downton Abbey—but certain rooms were done in a European style, so that she might have been in London or Paris, while others had the look of the private apartments of an Arab sultan. She'd need months to drink it all in, she thought as the butler led them on a brief tour.

And—oh!—out the back windows, there was even a large canopied tent covering a romantic collection of sofas and pillows and chaise lounges and oriental rugs, all lit by candles and lanterns and sitting next to a large swimming pool. She knew where she and Robert would be spending a great deal of this holiday.

At last they were taken upstairs to their room. Cora was hoping for Middle Eastern décor here, and she was not disappointed with the geometric latticework that set off the bed from the sitting area or the luxurious draped curtains or the Moorish furnishings.

"Oh, Robert, it's _beautiful_ ," she gushed as the butler left them. "It's…I never could have imagined this!"

"So I've done well?" he asked, chuckling as he came to hold her.

" _Very_ well." She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer for a long kiss, their tongues dancing slowly and luxuriously. At last she pulled away, resting her head against his chest, and sighed as he stroked her back.

"You're quite tired," he murmured, and she nodded, though it had not been a question. She was grateful for the easy way he sensed and accepted her fatigue in spite of their romantic surroundings. They both knew they had several more nights here.

"Why don't you have a seat while I run you a hot bath?" he asked, kissing the top of her head. "I imagine that would feel very nice after we rode a kangaroo with hiccups halfway across the country."

She giggled at his description of the train. "Yes, it would. Thank you."

In the last couple years, Bates had resigned in order to open a hotel with his wife, and Baxter had left service to marry Molesley, who now had a position as a teacher. After some consideration, neither had been replaced: it was a different world now, a less formal world, a world where a maid or a valet was less a luxury and more a hassle. "And besides," Robert had whispered, his lips at Cora's ear, when Baxter had handed in her notice, "I am more than happy to take your clothes off for you every single night."

She had laughed, but in truth (and much to her amusement), Robert was soon partly trained in the role of a lady's maid. He had become fond, over the last couple years, of using some of his new spare time to pamper her, and Cora would have readily admitted that she was now quite spoiled. She was used to cups of tea mixed and brought to her by Robert, soothing backrubs after long days at the hospital, and scented baths drawn by her husband. "Please," he'd said soon after she'd nursed him through his recovery, "I want to take care of _you_ now."

So Cora happily sank down onto a chaise next to a small table that held a bowl of fresh fruit, helping herself to some of the strawberries. The water seemed to run for a strangely long time, but eventually Robert returned to the bedroom.

"Your bath is ready, princess," he said, his eyes twinkling as he gave her a dramatic bow, and she laughed and stood to follow him.

Yet the beauty of the rest of the palace had not quite prepared her for its washroom. It was nearly the size of the neighboring bedroom, and every inch of floor and walls was covered in expensive marble. There was a sofa and a chandelier and gold-plated mirrors, and the bathtub itself—which she believed would have comfortably fit three or four people—had its own canopy of rich purple velvet, held up by thick Roman columns.

"Robert, I…I…this is the _washroom_?"

He chuckled. "I did ask about it before I agreed to rent this place, because I know how you do love your baths. My friend assured me that the washroom was…how did he say it? 'Sizeable, and rather luxurious.'"

"The understatement of the year," she murmured, still taking it all in. "Oh, and the _roses_!" Her eyes had at last fallen on the bathwater itself, where red rose petals had been scattered over fluffy, white bubbles. "Robert, darling, you've quite outdone yourself."

"Well, I was hoping," he said, stepping behind her and beginning to unfasten her dress, "to get promoted from 'maid to a countess' to 'maid to a princess.' I heard there was an opening, ma'am, and I should like to be considered."

"That depends," she said seriously, "on whether or not you'll join me for this bath."

"That would be an honor, ma'am," he said, lightly kissing her neck.

He made quick work of her clothes, insisting she get in first, and Cora sank down into the water, letting the bubbles reach up to her chin. "Oh, Robert," she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment and relaxing into the warmth, "this does feel wonderful."

"The temperature is all right?" he asked as he removed his own clothing.

It was a bit hotter than she was used to at home, but with the chill of the February night and the stiffness she'd acquired on the train, she didn't mind that. "The temperature," she said, feeling the tension already ebbing out of her muscles, "is _heavenly_."

"Good," he said, climbing in and sighing as well as he sank down next to her.

She kissed his cheek and then took his face in her hands, gently turning him towards her for a slow, soft kiss to his lips. "Thank you for all of this, darling," she whispered.

He kissed the tip of her nose. "Of course, my love. Happy anniversary."

Cora moved to lean against him, her head nestled in his neck and her back resting against his chest, and his arms slipped around her. Closing her eyes, she smiled as she felt him press a kiss to her temple, and she let herself rest in his arms for some time before remembering why she was in here in the first place and forcing herself to move to wash.

She reached for the bottle of soap resting on the side of the tub and poured a bit onto a small towel, which she rubbed over her arms and chest.

"Let me do that," Robert said. "It's more relaxing if you don't have to stretch to wash your own back and your legs." He moved to take the towel from her, but she set it on the other side of the tub, out of his reach, and gave him a mischievous smile. She was finding that the water was not only relaxing but rejuvenating, and she was no longer sure she wanted to wait for tomorrow night.

"Couldn't you just use your hands?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, I imagine that I could," he said, winking and taking some soap into his palms.

She closed her eyes as his hands worked over her shoulders, removing the last of the tension there. Then with a touch to her elbow, he indicated that she should kneel, and she felt his hands rub soap over her back and hips, and she drew her breath in sharply as they slipped lower. But he did not respond, merely pressing her shoulder to get her to sink back down, and then he moved to take her right leg and then her left into his hands. The slick soap and the water made his fingers feel like warm silk running over her legs, and she sighed with pleasure, opening her eyes to see him smiling at her as his thumbs gently rubbed small, firm circles into the arch of her foot.

"You have the most beautiful body, Cor," he said, and the simple way he said it—as though it were as plain a fact as the weather—made her heart swell with happiness.

When he had finished with her, she took soap into her hands as well and worked over Robert's body, marveling at the feel of his muscles under her hands. When she reached the scar on his stomach, her breath caught in her chest, as it always did at the sight, and she pressed feather-light kisses along the length of it, as she always did when he was naked before her, saying a silent prayer of thanks for his life.

As she moved lower, it became evident that he was quite ready for her, too, but she tried to ignore it. "Let's wait for the bed, shall we?" she whispered in his ear, and he groaned. So she quickly finished washing him and then let the water out, and they stood to dry each other with fluffy, luxurious towels.

"Now, I believe you said something about a bed?" he asked, wrapping the towel around her, and she barely had time to nod before he had scooped her up in his arms. She yelped in surprise but took immediate advantage of her position to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him soundly.

Robert carried her to the bed, where he set her down and immediately climbed on top of her, her own arms pulling him closer. " _Hurry_ ," she whispered urgently, her heart pounding at his nearness. "I need you." She had wanted him since his fingers had first traced over her skin, and she did not think she could stand to wait much longer.

He laughed, parting her legs. "And I thought it was me with the desperate need."

Cora shook her head fervently. "Please, Robert, now." And then she felt his body join with hers, and they both sighed, curling into one another.

When at last they had finished, Robert rolled off of her but pulled her close, giving soft kisses to her forehead and nose and lips. "I thought you were tired, darling," he whispered, and she heard the smile in his words.

"Well, I am now," she said with a quiet laugh. "But I'm very glad we did that."

He kissed her forehead again, then drew the blankets over them both and slipped a protective arm around her as they fell asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**1889**

"Did you enjoy yesterday?" Cora asked Robert the next morning as they settled into their train compartment for the journey to Cairo.

He seemed surprised at the question, but he nodded. "I did, yes. Papa and I had quite the walk."

"What did you see?" she pressed. If she was not to see Alexandria herself, she wanted to at least hear about it.

"Well, the pillar, of course. And we did go by the old citadel."

The lighthouse site! Cora forced herself to swallow her jealousy.

"Otherwise, I suppose it was your standard North African city," he went on. As though they were in the habit of visiting North African cities! "Quite a vibrant bazaar, a few mosques. Coffee houses—we stopped in one just off the Mediterranean." Cora was not sure which bit of this made her hungrier or more envious, but Robert went on. "And there was market for goats and camels." He grinned. "Loud bunch of things, they were."

 _"Camels?"_ she asked. Of course there were camels in Egypt, but the thought of Robert stumbling on a pen full of them in the middle of a city filled her with wonder.

"Oh, there are hundreds of camels here, darling. You'll see lots of camels before we go home."

"But at a market? I wouldn't have thought they had markets for them!" Perhaps it should not have been so strange, but she could not quite wrap her mind around the idea of such exotic creatures casually lining up to be sold the way hogs and cows were back in England.

He shrugged. "Of course they have markets. Where else would the Egyptians buy their livestock?" Cora tried to imagine thinking of a zoo animal as "livestock." "One of the largest ones in the world is in Cairo."

"What an incredible sight that must be!" she exclaimed. Would they be staying anywhere near it? she wondered.

Robert chuckled. "How was your afternoon, dearest?"

Her afternoon? "Well, I didn't go out…"

"I know; of course you didn't. But was it restful?"

"I took a bath," she said, unsure what else she was supposed to have done. "And then I read for a bit."

"Good, good. I expect you were quite tired from all the travel."

So _that_ was why he hadn't taken her. He'd thought her overly tired from the journey there. She hadn't been, of course—sailing across the Mediterranean had actually been quite restful, and she'd been so very excited to finally be in Egypt. But she was not angry at his having thought so—only disappointed at what she'd missed. Concern for her stamina was a far less troubling explanation than disinterest in her company; there was even a bit of affection in it, and Cora smiled.

"I'm quite rested now," she said. "And very much looking forward to seeing Egypt."

"You'll be quite a bit busier in Cairo and Luxor. I hope that's all right."

She nodded eagerly. She hadn't come down here to lie around in her room.

"In fact, there are quite a number of other families in town, and I know Mama has secured a number of invitations."

Nor had she come down here to dine with aristocrats she could have seen in Yorkshire, but Cora nodded politely. "There's also…there's quite a bit more to see in those cities, isn't there?" she asked tentatively.

"Oh, of course, of course. Quite a bit more to see—the pyramids themselves are in Cairo!"

"And we'll–we'll see those?" she asked, hoping he caught the pronoun. Surely he intended to take her along once they were settled somewhere.

Robert gave her a smile that suggested he was hiding something wonderful. "Right away, darling. Right away."

It became quite clear what Robert had meant when the party arrived at the Mena House Hotel that evening. Mena House was outside the city and had been built in the 1860s as a hunting lodge for the Egyptian king. Eventually, it had been sold to a British couple, who had opened it as a hotel three years ago. According to Robert, the Prince of Wales himself had stayed at Mena House earlier in the year, and with that sort of recommendation, there had simply been no other hotel in Cairo for Lady Grantham.

The exterior was not particularly ornate, and the walls were crawling with balconies and verandas—Cora hoped desperately that she'd have one in her rooms—but most importantly, the building was situated within shouting distance of the pyramids themselves. Two of them were easily visible from Mena House's front lawn, and Cora knew that meant the smaller ones were nearby as well, along with the marvelous sphinx. Why, if it weren't for the roughness of the desert terrain, the pyramid complex would have been within walking distance!

"I told you we'd see them as soon as we arrived," Robert said to an open-mouthed Cora. "I've been told we've even got rooms with a view of them."

Cora immediately made silent plans to take tomorrow's breakfast not in bed but on her terrace. But… "We will _go_ and see them, yes?" she asked. She was longing to examine the monuments and to step inside their dark chambers, marveling at the paintings and writing she knew were hidden on the inner walls. "We'll get even closer?"

"Of course, of course—we can't be this close and not visit the pyramids," he assured her. "Papa said we would even ride camels out to them—so you'll be getting up close and personal with one of those, too."

* * *

She'd been ecstatic to hear it, and she'd been perfectly enchanted once they were inside the hotel. Mena House was an English great house in its size and the expense of its décor and its artwork, but it was a world away in its style, full of domed arches for doorways and beaded curtains and ornate brass hanging lamps in place of chandeliers. Her own rooms were much the same as the hotel's public areas, trading the delicate florals of Europe for the bright colors, geometric patterns, and rich fabrics of the East. And Robert had been quite right: her balcony looked out onto the pyramid complex, providing an otherworldly view for the next day's breakfast.

Cora had asked Jameson to bring her an Egyptian breakfast, and her maid had returned, a squeamish expression on her own face, with a plate of triangular flatbread and several spoonfuls of a brown, mushy substance.

"They tell me it's mashed beans, milady," Jameson said, her disapproval clear. "As though beans need mashing! And they call it full or fool or something of the sort. You're supposed to spread it on this bread they didn't bother to let rise, but is your ladyship quite sure you don't want me to ask for something English?"

She could not imagine why anyone would want to eat toast and marmalade while looking over the pyramids. "No, certainly not. Thank you, Jameson." She accepted the tray and spread a bit of the beans on a piece of the bread, then took a bite. It was an earthy, almost bitter flavor, a slight hint of both nuts and peas, but not unpleasant. Cora did not like it as well as the mint tea she'd been brought earlier, but she did not _dis_ like it, and it certainly made for a nice change from the repetition she'd grown used to at Downton.

"It's quite good," she told her maid, who was clearly waiting in expectation of being sent to fetch something better.

"I had them fry an egg, myself," Jameson said skeptically, and Cora hid a smile. "But anyway, milady," the older woman went on, "I've got a message for you from her ladyship. She asked that you join her in the gardens once you're dressed."

Join _her_? Cora didn't like the sound of that. A morning with Violet was not what she'd had in mind for her first day in Cairo, and wasn't there a message from Robert? Surely he didn't think her "tired" again today, not after a full night's rest. Surely he meant to take her along. But perhaps he was sleeping in…in her excitement, Cora had risen rather early. Or perhaps he did not mean to go out until later. Perhaps she should not hear Violet's summons as the hijacking of an entire day...

"Thank you, Jameson," she said. "Please let her know that I'll be out soon."

* * *

Mena House Hotel was surrounded by acres of verdant green gardens, a spot of Eden in the midst of a barren desert, and it was here, just off the back terrace, that Cora met her mother-in-law an hour later.

"Lovely to see you, my dear," Violet said, brushing her cheek in one of the cold kisses Cora had become used to. "Getting Rosamund out of bed in the mornings when we're traveling is more difficult than raising Lazarus, but I thought I might have better luck with you."

"Egypt's far too exciting to lie in bed all morning," Cora said. "And I suspect this is the coolest part of the day, too." It was already a bit warm.

"Quite right, quite right. We'll all rest this afternoon when it gets hot." Violet slowly set off along a row of palm trees, and Cora followed, rather troubled now. If they were all to nap later today, what was she doing wasting the morning strolling amidst plants?

"I'm glad to have some time alone with you," the countess went on. "We've got quite a bit to accomplish here in Cairo, and I ought to go over it all with you. The Montgomerys are here, and the Dunmores, and the Dowager Duchess of Manchester, and we've got engagements with all of them. There's nothing today—I thought we could use our first day to settle in—but then tomorrow we've a luncheon given by the Duchess, and I've secured invitations to tea with the Montgomerys and their daughters on Wednesday, and I'll want you to pay some calls with me, and—"

"Where is Robert?" Cora cut in, wanting to cover her ears and block out the growing list of social obligations.

"Heavens, child, your mind does wander. Have you been listening to a word I've been saying? Robert has gone to the Museum of Antiquities, but—"

"Without me?" Cora squeaked. The news that Robert was poring over the artifacts and artwork and sculptures and carvings and jewels and coins and mummies that she had been dreaming about for weeks while she examined flowers and bushes was like a punch in the stomach, and she almost recoiled physically.

Violet raised her eyebrows. "Of course without you. Surely you weren't interested in all those dusty old things?"

"I…will he be going again?"

"I haven't any idea what his plans are, but I doubt he'll be visiting the same place twice."

The first bit of the sentence left Cora in no doubt that Robert would be not attending any of the luncheons or teas that she would, and it was becoming abundantly clear that she would barely see him at all on this trip.

"Perhaps you can question him about his itinerary later?" Violet went on. "We haven't finished going over yours."

Cora nodded glumly. "Yes, Mama. Please go on."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Just a quick note to those of you who are also following "Far More"...I may not get that updated this week. I'm having some trouble getting the rest of the story outlined, and I need to know where I'm going with a couple things before I can write any further. But I promise to have an update to FM by March 3 or so-I won't abandon you!

* * *

 **1929**

Robert and Cora spent their first full day in Cairo at the house. There had been talk of the Museum of Antiquities or the pyramids or a walk in the medieval quarter, but they had several more days in which to accomplish their sightseeing, and they found upon waking that they were not eager to leave each other's arms. They lingered in bed for much of the morning before eventually wandering out to the terrace in the back, where the afternoon sun and the pool's luxurious heated pipes made a swim an inviting prospect. Dinner was to be lamb tagine, served under the poolside tent, and in light of such a beautiful setting, Cora had suggested they dress just as they traditionally had. Robert, who finished first as always, had taken a seat on the edge of the bed to watch the rest of her preparations, and from his expression, she had wondered whether they would make it through the meal—or even down to dinner—before he pounced. But he had more self-control than she gave him credit for, and they were soon reclining on couches next to a low table, savoring the cuisine's exotic spices. The gentle lantern light seemed to call for hushed voices, and they quietly discussed their plans for the remaining days in Cairo, beginning with the museum tomorrow.

"To see all those 'dusty old things,' as Mama called them," Cora said, smiling wryly as she took a bite of the baklava they had been served for dessert.

"I hate that you missed everything last time," he said with a regretful sigh.

She shook her head. "I didn't miss _everything_." Of course she'd longed to see more of the country's many ancient sites on their earlier trip, but the uninterrupted time she'd eventually had with Robert had been of far more value to her.

"All you saw was the pyramids—"

"I didn't like the pyramids nearly as much as I liked all the time with you."

"That was rather hard-won for you, though." He regarded her gently. "You are being careful, yes? Only I can't help but think…and when I saw you with your gloves earlier, when you were getting dressed, I…"

"Of course I am," Cora said, reaching across to take his hand. As romantic as the aftermath of her injury might have been, the pain of it had not been far from her mind since they'd arrived back in Egypt. "I don't think anyone could be as careful as I am! My arm ached for _months_ after that." She was laughing softly now, but he wasn't, and there was still worry in his eyes.

"Yes, I remember."

"You know," she said, smiling conspiratorially and hoping that the admission would lighten his mood, "it didn't hurt quite as often as I pretended it did after we got home."

"No?"

She could feel a pink tinge rising into her cheeks, remembering how happy it had made her to think he did care for her. "No. I learned to exaggerate that a bit after I discovered you would hold me in bed if I told you my arm hurt, because you thought it would help to keep it warm."

"And you tell me _I'm_ incorrigible," he said with a wink as he raised her hand to kiss it.

"Surely you can't blame me for falling for your sweet attention, and craving more of it." She grinned, but his eyes darkened at her sentence, and she chastised herself for reminding them both of how little of his attention she had had in the early days.

He had not let her hand go when he lowered it, and his thumb pressed her fingers lightly as solemnity returned to his face. "Darling, I hate to think what I put you through the first year of our marriage."

"Don't say it like that. You weren't unkind—you were good to me. I didn't blame you for anything. I _don't_ blame you for anything."

Robert managed a close-lipped smile that did not meet his eyes. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not sure there's any more damning praise for a new husband than 'not unkind.'"

"But you _weren't_ , and that's more than many American heiresses might have said." She squeezed his hand tightly. "That's why I've got _fond_ memories of the end of our last trip: you were so kind. You wouldn't have spent all those days sitting with me and taken such good care of me if you hadn't been a kind man."

"For heaven's sake, Cora, it was more than that—I didn't do it to be kind. I cared for you, very much."

"I know," she said softly, feeling a blush in her cheeks at the memory. "And I knew that then. I think that was why I was so happy in spite of everything—I realized you cared for me, and I don't think I'd known that before. I still knew you didn't love me yet, but I thought if you cared for me, that love would be soon in coming, and I was willing to wait. And it was worth every bit of the wait." She was smiling, and she wanted to tell him to come and hold her, but he drew back at her words. "Darling?" she asked.

"You don't _understand_ ," he said, his voice dropping as it always did when he was at his most serious. "I did love you then."

"After I was hurt?" He had not told her he loved her until months later…

He shook his head. "No, no. I think maybe that was when I first _knew_ it, but I loved you long before that—"

"You'd barely spoken to me earlier on that trip." Cora smiled indulgently at his desire to rewrite their past. "But it's all right, darling; I know you—"

 _"No,"_ he said sharply, setting her hand down and pressing it firmly beneath his on the table. "You must understand, Cora. I had loved you since the beginning. Since I married you—no, since I first saw you in that Mayfair ballroom."

She pulled her hand away, wanting to cool the intensity in his eyes. This was such a departure from the established history of their marriage that she did not know quite what to think or what to say at first, and she wondered briefly if she ought to take this as an early sign that his mind was going. "Robert, darling," she said quietly, "you didn't fall in love with me for almost a year. You didn't tell me until nearly our first anniversary—"

"I know I didn't say it," he interrupted. "And I know I was a terrible husband— _yes_ , I _was_ ," he said, holding up a hand to stop the protests that were about to pour from her lips. "I know I was a terrible husband for most of that first year. I know I ignored you, I know I didn't spend enough time with you, I know there's a million things I should have done that I didn't. But I…it wasn't because I didn't love you. I always loved you—how could I _not_ have loved you? But I was young and afraid and awkward and inexperienced and I didn't know what to say to you or what to do with you or how to relate to you…I didn't even _understand_ that I loved you. But I did, Cora. I _did_."

"You–you've never told me that." And he hadn't—he'd casually denied that it had taken him as long to fall for her as she claimed it had, but he'd never declared he'd loved her from the beginning.

"Yes, I did. The night I was ill in the dining room—it's what I meant when I told you I wanted you to know how much I've loved you. I don't think I always knew it, but the truth is, Cora, that I've always loved you."

She closed her eyes for a moment and then looked down, focusing her gaze on her rings as she turned them, trying to hold back her tears. She had long told him that the beginning didn't matter, and she had truly thought that it hadn't, but suddenly, it did. To think that her husband had loved her from the beginning, loved her from the night he had first laid eyes on her—as she had loved him—changed her world as immediately and as completely as if she'd just been told she was the long-lost heir to the throne and that King George would be surrendering his crown to her in the morning. There was a sweet ache in her chest to match the stinging in her eyes, and memories of the cold first year of her marriage flooded her brain, a warm, bittersweet glow settling over them. _He had loved her._

"Sweetheart?" she heard him say gently, and she closed her eyes again as she was brought back to the present.

"Could you hold me?" she whispered, speaking around the lump that had risen into her throat.

Robert rose and came to join her on her couch, his arms enveloping her as she rested her head in the crook of his neck and shoulder. It struck her, and not for the first time, that there was never any fidgeting or jockeying for a comfortable position when she snuggled into Robert's arms: they knew how their bodies fit together, and fit together they did, quite perfectly, like two puzzle pieces whose contours had been sculpted to connect.

"I did not know," he said, warmth in his voice, "that I had not made myself clear that night."

She tried to laugh, but it ended as a sob.

"Oh, my Cora," he breathed, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "My darling, you have always been loved."

* * *

AN: I based this chapter on an interview Hugh Bonneville gave about the Red Dinner, where he interprets Robert's "I have loved you very, very much" in a similar fashion:

"It's rather a touching moment because Robert is confronted with his mortality. And who knows what's gonna happen in the minutes and hours following that moment. So I think it's quite telling that in the moment of crisis, the truth comes out. And it is that he's always loved her."


	6. Chapter 6

**1889**

"Cora? May I come in?"

Cora rose from where she'd been reclining on the chaise to answer the knocking at the dividing door. It was evening on the family's second full day in Cairo, and she was already dressed for bed, but she suspected that was precisely what Robert wanted.

"Of course," she called, fiddling with the hotel's clumsy lock and at last opening the door. "You may." He was in his dressing gown, too, and she managed a small smile, unsure whether she was happy to see him at last or simply annoyed at having been unceremoniously ditched two days in a row. Cora had spent today with Rosamund and Violet, being drug around to various houses and hotels, paying calls on other holidaying aristocrats. She was not sure what Robert had done and had avoided asking her mother-in-law, knowing she would only be made more jealous, but whatever it was, it had not included her.

But oh, it was nice to have his company again! They hadn't had so much as a moment together since they'd arrived at Mena House.

"Are you enjoying Cairo?" Robert asked warmly as he stepped inside.

"I've spent the whole day paying calls," she evaded, not wanting to blame her bad time on the city. She imagined she'd rather enjoy Cairo—if she ever saw any of it.

"Yes, I thought you would be busy," he said with a smile.

"I've seen very little of you." She tried to keep her frustration out of her tone, but she suspected that it was creeping through anyway.

"Cora, you can't expect it to be like at Downton. We're on holiday—there's quite a bit for both of us to do."

That was the point, wasn't it? They were on holiday. She was supposed to have endless afternoons in his company, time to sit with him and talk with him and just _be_ with him, without the distractions of Downton. But, in a cruel mockery of her months of anticipation, now she was seeing even less of him than she did at home.

"I suppose I…I didn't realize that," she said softly, her heart sinking at the suggestion that this was how it was _supposed_ to be, and thus it would not be altered. "It's only that I've missed you."

"Well, I can hardly complain when a beautiful woman tells me she misses me." He took her hand and raised it for a kiss, which brought a small smile to her lips. Cora knew she ought not to read any meaning into such compliments, but she was so starved for loving words from him that she clung to every kind thing he said.

"And you seem to go much more interesting places than I do," she added, made bold by the kiss.

"You mean, the clubs today? I met up with a few friends—it wasn't any different from London, really."

That's much how she would describe her own day—no different from England—and it seemed such a careless and wasteful way to spend time in such an exotic land. "But you went to the museum yesterday, and—"

"You would have found the museum interesting?" Robert looked as confused as if she'd addressed him in Arabic.

"Didn't _you_?" What sort of boorish ape had she _married_?

"Of course I did! I just…I wouldn't have thought it would interest you."

Did he think her like his mother, with no regard for anything that did not come with a title? Or like his vapid sister, whose only interest in a new city was that it would come with a slew of new shops? She could feel her cheeks burning at his words. "Robert, I…I'm not…" Not what? Not stupid? Not ignorant? But she couldn't quite force herself to put an insult in his mouth.

He sighed. "Regardless, Cora, Mama needs you with her. You've got obligations here as the Viscountess Downton."

She did not reply immediately, hearing the truth in the statement. Of course she had obligations. She was _expected_ at a long list of tea parties and luncheons in Cairo—and likely in Luxor, too, she suspected—and she could hardly pull out now, with the mere excuse of sightseeing. And she wanted so badly to be a _real_ viscountess and not just a rich heiress, to make a success of this role. "I want you to know," she'd told Robert at their engagement, "that I really do mean to make a go of this. I mean to be a good wife, and a good viscountess." He wouldn't, she'd promised herself, ever have reason to regret his choice.

Only now he did—or rather, he _would_ , once he, too, realized they were destined to be childless. Having failed in that, Cora was determined not to fail in any other way.

"Of course," she said quietly, giving him another smile. "Of course I do."

"Are you tired tonight, darling?" he asked.

"No. No, I'm quite all right."

"Would you mind if we did our marital duties?"

She shook her head. "No. Of course not." She'd known that was what Robert wanted when he'd arrived, and she had resigned herself to it.

It was not that Cora _minded_ intimacy, she thought as her husband removed his own dressing gown and then untied the sash on hers. Aside from the sharp sting she'd felt on her wedding night, Robert had never hurt her; rather, he was always determinedly gentle, slipping inside her carefully and only after making sure that she was ready for him. Nor had he ever taken her to bed without asking her permission, and he never pressed the issue on nights when she was tired or otherwise uninterested. She knew she should be grateful for all of that, and she _was_ : she'd heard enough stories from friends and cousins of husbands who thought nothing of demanding a wife perform on command and painfully shoving in like a battering ram.

And in some ways, Cora had to admit that she even enjoyed sex. After all, the sensations were quite pleasant. But it was not _pleasant sensations_ that Cora wanted. She longed for Robert to cradle her body against his; to whisper _I love you's_ in her ear; to tell her how much he desired _her_ , Cora Crawley, not just the generic female he'd married; to fall asleep with her in his arms afterwards. She didn't want to perform marital duties; she wanted to make love.

"Perhaps we'll come home from Egypt with a souvenir?" Robert murmured, cupping her flat stomach with his hand as he eased her down onto the bed.

No. No, they wouldn't.

Cora closed her eyes to hide her tears.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Three people asked in my reviews how 1889 Cora knows she can't have children, which made me think that others were probably wondering the same thing and just didn't ask, so I wanted to post a quick note. Cora doesn't really know she can't get pregnant…she just thinks that if she were normal, she'd be pregnant after nine months of regular sex, and therefore she must be infertile. Of course that's not true, but she's young and naive and panicking at the lack of a baby, and I think it's almost easier for her to write off the possibility than continue to fret about it.

Also, I wanted to post a warning that this chapter will include a somewhat graphic discussion of miscarriage, so if that would bother you, you might want to skip over this.

* * *

 **1929**

"Shall we move on to Tutankhamun?" Robert asked as Cora lingered over a display of ancient coins.

It was late in the afternoon, and they had spent the day scouring Cairo's Museum of Antiquities. The grand building—a newer, larger one than Robert had visited four decades earlier—housed more than 100,000 artifacts, and even after hours and hours of touring, they both felt they'd barely scratched the surface. There was so much to see here that it all felt completely new to Robert—indeed, he imagined the odds that he'd seen any of these particular artifacts on his previous trip were quite low—but to Cora, he could tell that it was another world. She hadn't, after all, made it into any of Egypt's museums in 1889, and frankly, the scale of the Egyptian collection in the British Museum paled in comparison.

"We're running out of time, aren't we?" Cora said with a regretful sigh.

"We can come back, darling," he said. He would like nothing more—the museum interested him, and he would be happy to explore more of it, but most of all he loved the awe in Cora's eyes as she looked over the ancient treasures. Why on earth had he kept this from her on their first visit? "We've got several more days in Cairo," he went on. "But surely you don't want to wait to see the boy king?"

She shook her head. "No, of course not. Not to mention that he's all you've talked about for months!" She smiled at him and slipped her fingers through his. "Besides, it will be nice to see something that's new to both of us."

Discovered a mere seven years earlier on an expedition funded by the Earl of Carnarvon, the contents of King Tutankhamun's tomb were certainly new. The whole world had eagerly devoured newspaper accounts of the rich discovery, and Robert had been especially excited at the opportunity to see it all in person.

"Oh, Robert," Cora breathed when they stepped into the upper gallery containing the Tutankhamun exhibit. "It's… _glorious_."

And indeed it was. The young pharaoh's possessions seemed to stretch on for miles, many of them built from solid gold. Stunned into silence, they slowly filed past furniture and statues and jewels that made Downton seem an ill-decorated shack. Then there was the golden throne, adorned with lions and winged serpents; and the bejeweled death mask of twenty pounds' worth of gold; and the shrine with its ornate carvings of Egyptian deities.

Robert had been studying a slab covered in hieroglyphics, wondering at such a writing system, when he slowly realized that Cora was no longer at his side, and he sensed that she had not been for quite some time.

"Cora?" He turned and glanced around him, his gaze flitting over the gaggle of other tourists poring over the exhibits. "Ah, there you are…" His wife was but a few feet away, examining some small box in the case before her, but she did not move at his words.

"Cora!" he called more loudly, and still she did not turn, far more intent upon the object before her than he had been on the hieroglyphics. Pleased again at her interest, he approached her, gently taking hold of her arm to get her attention.

She flinched almost violently at the touch, and he pulled his hand back. "Oh, it's you," she said, drawing a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Cora shook her head, giving him a small, close-lipped smile. "It's all right. I was miles away."

A quick glance at the object of her attention revealed it to be an odd, blackened statuette, quite small and not nearly as well-sculpted as the others in the exhibit. Indeed, the face was almost alien, and parts of it were sunken in. "What is this thing, anyway?" he asked, wondering what about it had so captivated her.

She closed her eyes, her shoulders tensing as though he'd hurt her with the question.

"Cora?" he asked softly, troubled now.

"It's their baby," she whispered, just as his eyes fell on the English description plate: _Mummified fetus of Tutankhamun's daughter, stillborn between the fifth and seventh month of pregnancy._ Robert remembered, suddenly, that the young king had not been the only one found in the tomb: he had been buried with a woman who was likely his wife, as well as two stillborn infants.*

Of course the child would be unnaturally tiny. Of course it would be not-quite-perfectly formed, with a few more months to go in its mother's womb. And of course it would trouble Cora, who had had three miscarriages of her own.

The first of these had been in the second spring of their marriage, a few short months after he'd first told her he loved her. He'd not even known Cora was pregnant, nor did he know immediately that she had miscarried—only after three days of his worry over her strange exhaustion and withdrawal had she come to him and tearfully confessed that she'd lost their first baby, and did he hate her now? A baby he had not known about until after its death had been too remote for him to truly grieve, and he had been much sorrier for _her_ sake, much more concerned about her own grief than aware of his, much more interested in assuaging her fears than in the lost infant.

Then there had been the child she had lost between Edith and Sybil, that long stretch of four years when they'd both begun to fear there would be no more babies. And then at last, she'd fallen pregnant, only to miscarry just two short weeks after the doctor had confirmed her condition. But their youngest daughter had been conceived a few months later, and Cora had appeared to shed her grief immediately, burying it beneath her joy at the new life.

Last, of course, had been the loss he had found most painful, for it had come so quickly on the heels of such unexpected elation. Their much-longed-for son, whose too-early birth had almost taken his mother, too. Robert had grieved for that child, grieved intensely, but he had grieved far more for Cora, whom he had come too close to losing and who slipped into a depression that had lasted for months and that he'd feared he would never rouse her from.

The sound of Cora drawing a deep, shaky breath returned him to the present. "I need air," she said as his eyes snapped back to her. "Please—I–I can't breathe in here." She almost stumbled in her sudden haste to turn away, and Robert caught her arm firmly.

The African sun, persistent even in the winter, had made the day a warm one, and it was stuffy inside the museum—especially in the Tutankhamun exhibit, packed as it was with other foreigners—but he knew it was not the temperature she needed to get away from. "I've got you," he said, tucking her arm securely through his. "I'll take you outside." She nodded, but her eyes did not meet his.

He could feel her trembling against him, but she did not speak and she did not cry as he maneuvered the both of them back through the crowd, down the steps, and out the front door of the museum. The building's forecourt was beautiful—especially now, as the sun sank low to the horizon and bathed the city in a golden light—with a long fountain covered in lily pads stretching between the front door and the street and two sphinxes relaxing alongside of it, but the surroundings were the least of Robert's concerns. He guided Cora to the fountain and sat her down on its ledge, taking a seat at her left.

Still she kept her silence, closing her eyes and pressing her right hand firmly to the bridge of her nose, her breathing labored as though she were holding back tears. Robert wrapped her other hand in both of his, giving it a gentle squeeze, and she clung tightly in return.

Untold minutes passed this way, and he had just begun to wonder if he ought to suggest they get a taxi back to the palace when Cora spoke at last.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, opening her eyes at last and wiping away the tears that had not ever fallen.

"Don't be sorry." He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, his heart catching at the grief etched onto her face. "Never be sorry. You've done nothing wrong, nothing unnatural for a mother who…who's…" He could not bring his mouth to form the words _lost children_ , but he knew from the way she squeezed his hand that she had heard them in his silence.

"I should have thought of that," he went on. "I just…I didn't think." He had not known that the fetuses were on display, nor had he bothered to wonder about it, but if he _had_ known, he suspected he would not have realized the significance they would have for Cora. "I didn't…I didn't understand. And even when I saw you looking at it, I didn't—"

"Her," she interrupted.

"What?"

"Her," she said again, her voice emotionless. "I was looking at _her_ , not _it_."

"Of course," he said, mortified at his slip of the tongue and the reminder of his flippant question earlier: _What is this thing, anyway?_ "I'm sorry. Of course she's a _her_. A little girl."

"Yes," Cora said softly.

They fell into silence again, Robert contemplating the fact that perhaps he had not grieved their miscarried children as Cora had because they had never quite been people to him. The babies in his wife's womb had always been mere _possibilities_ in his mind, plans to be wished for and excited for and prepared for, but they had never seemed entirely _real_ until they had been placed in his arms after their delivery. When he had wept at the loss of their son, he had wept not for a baby he had loved but for a dream that would not be.

Yet to Cora, all six of her pregnancies had been _babies_ , tiny people who had lived within her, whom she had first felt as barely-perceptible flutters in her stomach, who had then woke her in the night with their kicks and somersaults, who had flexed their toes against her ribs. They had all been precious children whom she had cuddled closer before birth than she ever could after, beings who had snaked miniscule fingers around her heart before they had ever been able to touch his.

His own throat constricted now at their shared loss, for the sight of the tiny mummy in the exhibit had made it abundantly clear to him that Cora had been quite right. There had been nothing vague or unreal about the body of the ancient royal child.

A dry sob escaped from Cora, and Robert untangled his right hand, leaving his left still wrapped around hers, so that he could slowly rub up and down her back. For a moment he thought she would cry, but she calmed herself with another deep breath. He was aware that they were beginning to attract curious glances from Arabs and Europeans alike, but he ignored them.

"She looked so much like him," she said suddenly, tightening her grip on his hand and shifting closer. "So much like our son."

Like their son? But he had never been born. "You mean, that's how he would have looked? Because they were both… _lost_ at roughly the same age?"

Cora shook her head, pressing her fingers to her mouth as though she were about to be ill.

"Darling?" he asked gently.

"I–I can't talk about this out here, Robert," she said. "Can we—I want to go home. Please, let's go home."

"Of course. You're in no fit state to run about Cairo at the moment." He stood and then helped her up. "Come, we'll get a taxi."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, they were seated on a sofa in their rented bedroom, Cora clutching a throw pillow to her chest. She was on the far edge from Robert, her back resting more against the couch's arm than its back, and he had not reached out for her, sensing she needed control, and that she needed space to maintain it.

"I didn't mean," she began, "that he probably _would_ have looked like her. I meant he _did_ look like her. Not–not blackened and shriveled with age, of course. But the size, and–and the _face_ —" She bit her lip, hugging the pillow harder.

Had Clarkson _shown_ her the baby? Surely not. He'd known she had given birth, and that the remains had been placed in a small box for burial. But he had never looked inside, and he had long assumed that the doctor had had the common sense not to reveal the dead child to its mother.

"Did Clarkson _show_ him to you?" he asked, suddenly angry. How dare he put Cora through such pain…

"He didn't want to," she whispered. "And I thought–I thought he wouldn't. But I begged and I cried and he–he let me hold him."

She had _held_ him? "Cora…"

"He was so _little_ ," she gasped. "And his skin was so thin and his arms and his legs were so frail, but…he was beautiful, Robert, really, he was."

"I don't doubt that, my darling." Rather, what did shock him was that she had had the strength to hold their stillborn son. He could not imagine having done so, and yet it was _Cora_ whom he had seen as weak and frail and fragile in the aftermath of their child's death. He'd congratulated himself on staying strong for _her_ , but how small had his own strength been in comparison?

"I told him I loved him," she went on, "and that I was sorry—"

"Oh Cora, you had nothing to—"

She shook her head quickly. "No. Babies trust their mothers; they trust that they're safe in their wombs. And I didn't–I didn't keep him safe." Her voice cracked, and she reached out for him as he moved to pull her close.

"Shh, my darling," he breathed as she wept against his chest. "It was an accident. No one can help having an accident." They were words he had repeated he didn't know how many times in the months afterwards, and, as he had done then, he rocked her gently and pressed kisses to her forehead until her tears slowed.

"I just—I thought about him when I saw her today," she said softly when she had calmed. "Because…clearly they grieved for her. Had her mummified, and then buried her with them…so they'd all be together."

"I suppose parents in any era would grieve for a lost child," he said. He thought of the small stone in the village graveyard that read _Baby Crawley, 1914_ , placed near to the plot reserved for him and Cora. There had been no service and he had had the infant buried before his wife was well enough to get out of bed and observe. The latter, he felt suddenly, had not been the right decision.

He had been absentmindedly removing the pins from her hair, and she sighed with relief when he finished and began to gently massage her scalp. A comforting silence descended over them, the air heavy with grief and warm with love as they let themselves be soothed by the other's presence.

"He'd be fourteen now," Cora said at last. "Our boy. In his first year at Eton."

Robert swallowed, closing his eyes as he tried to imagine how their son might have looked as a teen. "And the others," he said after a moment, "they'd be…"

"Thirty-eight and thirty-four," she said, with a speed and a certainty that told him she had not had to do the math. "A bit older and a bit younger than Mary and Edith."

There would almost certainly be grandchildren by now, he realized, feeling the loss anew as he considered future generations that would never be.

"Cora," he said slowly, "may I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Did you…that is, the others…did you see…"

"Only the first," she said, not forcing him to finish the sentence. "I only saw the first one. She—"

"You knew it was a girl?" he interrupted, more sharply than he had intended. He had never heard her assign it a gender before. Indeed, he had never heard her say much about it at all.

"Well, no…that is, I suppose not exactly. It was only that there wasn't any _indication_ that the baby was male, and I suppose that might have just been because nothing was developed yet, but I–I _needed_ it to have a gender, so with no evidence to the contrary I assumed it was a girl. She–she was _so tiny_. Much smaller than our son—much smaller than the girl we saw today. She fit easily in the palm of my hand, and she…I…I could almost pretend she was sleeping." Cora shook her head. "But her skin…it was almost translucent. But she had—everything was there: she had a little nose and eyes, and fingers and toes…those were _so_ little, Robert, no bigger than the tip of a pencil."

She fell silent and examined the palm of her right hand, touching it tentatively with the fingers of her left, and he tightened his grip on her, knowing she was remembering the sight of their miniscule daughter curled up in her palm.

"Darling," he said, his own voice tight with emotion, "you never–you never told me any of this." He had thought very little about the details of her first miscarriage, even at the time: more concerned with her unfounded fear that he would no longer love her, he had never considered that the event itself had been any more than another version of her monthly bleeding. It boggled his mind to imagine his wife—his very young wife, innocent and guileless at only twenty-one—sitting alone in her room, a tiny, bloody, dead baby resting in her soft hand. How on earth had she carried on for three days, going about her routine and seeming nothing more than tired and a bit sad? For heaven's sake, before her announcement, he'd labelled her behavior as either mere homesickness or the beginnings of a cold.

"It didn't…it didn't seem to matter."

"Of course it mattered! Cora, you saw…you saw…" He trailed off, trying to wrap his mind around what a traumatic sight it must have been for a girl who was still practically a child herself.

"I didn't know how to _say_ it," she amended, her voice climbing in pitch as she fought another round of tears. "I was…I was afraid it…it would be _too much_."

Too much for him to hear and still love her. Too graphic for his aristocratic ears.

"Nothing," he said gruffly, "would ever be too much."

He seized the palm she was still staring at and brought it to his lips, where he pressed kisses to the place where their baby had lain. Cora began to sob, and she slid down in his arms so that she was soon lying with her head in his lap as he soothed her.

"I didn't see the second one," she said after her tears had slowed. "I think I wasn't far enough along. There was a baby there somewhere, I'm sure, but it wasn't big enough to see it in the midst of all the…mess." She paused. "I think—I think that might have been even harder, not to see it. It was almost like…that baby never _was_." He squeezed her shoulder as she gave another small sob.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to spoil today."

"You haven't spoiled it," he said. "You could never spoil anything, and certainly not by talking of our children." Indeed, it would not have been his plan to end any of the days of their vacation with Cora sobbing with old grief, yet he could not help but feel that this had all been perfectly right for their fortieth anniversary. Of course they should talk of children they had lost. Of course she should confess the details he had never heard. Of course they should weep together as it was all laid before them. And of course he should glimpse signs of a quiet strength in her that he had not suspected.

* * *

They shared a mostly-silent dinner, their hands still clasped together, before making an early night of it. Cora had lain down on her right side, her back to him, and Robert settled against her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close, savoring the feel of her body against his and drawing comfort from his presence. She sighed at the contact, and he kissed her shoulder.

And then, just as his eyes were closing, he felt her hips shift slightly, but determinedly, against him. Was she just...settling? Surely she did not want...

"Cora?" he murmured when he felt the movement again.

"Hmm?"

"Cora, what are you—"

"Shh." She rolled over to face him, silencing his question with a slow, deep kiss, her palm stroking over his chest as she pushed him onto his back.

"Cora," he said as she began to stretch herself across his body, "do you...are you sure you want this? Tonight?" He did, certainly, and he could feel in his body that he was fast reaching the point of no return, but...did _she_? As upset as she had been earlier?

"Of course."

She was undoing the top buttons of his shirt, but he caught her hand gently in his. "So do I, darling, but are you sure you're all right? Are you ready for intimacy, after...after everything we've talked about tonight?"

To his surprise, she laughed softly. "Robert, we have been intimate all evening. I think we were both quite naked earlier."

And so they had been, he thought. And so they had been. He released her hand and reached instead for the hem of her nightdress.

Their copulation was a slow, luxurious one, more intimate than passionate, as they caressed each other's bodies, reverently exploring every inch. It was simply the purest, most basic comfort they could find, and they both knew the other was thinking of the many times in the past they had turned to sex for the same reason.

When Robert at last slipped inside of her, silent tears began to spill from Cora's eyes, and he moved quickly to pull back, but she clasped him to her, shaking her head fervently.

"Darling?" He laid a hand on her damp cheek.

"Stay," she whispered, gazing into his eyes as her tears flowed freely. "Stay there, please. This...helps."

He pressed soft kisses to her forehead and her cheeks and her eyes, and then to her lips.

* * *

*It's true that King Tut was buried with a woman who is probably his wife, Ankhesenamun, and their two stillborn children. Tut and Ankhesenamun were half-siblings (and Tut himself was the child of siblings), which was probably why they did not succeed in producing a live birth.

Neither of the mummified fetuses has ever been publicly displayed—that's purely my own dramatic license.


	8. Chapter 8

AN: Special thanks to Zaibi for her help with the Islamic call to prayer. You're awesome!

* * *

 **1889**

Cora had never been so sick. Panting, she rested her head on the edge of the toilet seat and tried to summon the strength to pull herself off the washroom floor to retrieve a glass of water to rinse her mouth. Yet when she tried to move, the room spun again, and she whimpered, closing her eyes.

She did not want water badly enough to stand, she decided. It was not as though she'd thrown up anything more than stomach bile this time, anyway—her dinner had all come up hours ago.

Cora knew precisely what this was: the pear. The lovely, juicy, succulent _pear_ she'd been daft enough to buy from a street vendor.

She'd had a horrible day, burning with jealousy when Robert had come to kiss her goodbye over her breakfast, announcing that he was off to the camel market, of all places. The camel market! Could there be anything more exotic? Meanwhile, she would be _shopping_ with his mother and sister. And not shopping for camels.

There wasn't even anything particularly Egyptian about the stores they went to: Violet stuck to European boulevards, and, except for the oppressive heat and the accents of the staff, they might as well have been in London. Normally Cora enjoyed shopping, but it had been _so_ hot today, and a more vapid companion than Rosamund could not have been found. And all while Robert was off petting exotic beasts.

In the afternoon, they'd gone off to some diplomat's home for tea with a group of Englishwomen. Nearly all of the younger ones had seemed to have a young son, and the older women all had daughters-in-law who had recently given birth to a male heir. Cora had been asked how old her own children were, and, after she had murmured that she had not been blessed with any yet, her mother-in-law had laughed coldly and said to the others, "You know how Americans can be—resistant toward duty. We didn't go into this expecting an heir very quickly."

Violet had then had the nerve to scold her after they'd left for her "melancholy air."

She'd seen it as a blessing when Rosamund had begged for one last shop before returning to Mena House and she'd received permission to go back alone with Jameson as a chaperone, their ladies' maids having accompanied them about the city.

On the way to the hotel, they'd passed one street vendor after another, the smells of their spices pricking Cora's nose. She felt she rather deserved a treat, and she hadn't had the heart to eat much at tea, and dinner was still so very far off, and she'd insisted to Jameson that they stop so she might buy something.

"I don't think it's a good idea, milady," her maid had said, eyeing the steaming kebabs on offer with a suspicious eye. "We don't know a thing about how any of this has been prepared—it's not like at the kitchens at Mena House. I imagine your ladyship may regret this a great deal later."

Cora knew very well that the standards of food preparation on the streets of Cairo were likely not what she was used to in England, and she might have resisted, in spite of her growing hunger and the wonderful scents, had the call to prayer not begun in the distance. It was a gentle, haunting melody that she'd nearly become accustomed to hearing five times a day, and yet it had not ceased to remind her that she was in an ancient, faraway land where the air was full of spices.

"Surely it's not so very risky," she murmured to Jameson as a brief hush fell over the city. "Not if I only do it once."

"Perhaps your ladyship might take a bit of fruit instead?" the other woman suggested desperately. "I shouldn't think it could be nearly as dirty as the meat!"

Cora opened her mouth to object but realized that there might be some merit in this, and it would feel forbidden enough to buy anything at all from one of Cairo's vendors. And so she stepped up and purchased one of the bright, shiny green pears, which she polished off as soon as she'd returned to her room.

She'd thought no more about it until Jameson had returned to dress her for dinner.

"Oh, my _lady_ ," she said when she entered, her face stricken. "Did you eat that pear yet? Did you eat the skin?" Cora nodded, and her maid only grew paler. "I've heard the worst thing from some of the native servants," she went on. "They say fruits and vegetables, if you eat the skin, can be even more dangerous to foreigners than meat! One of the women told me she'd seen far more English guests get sick from uncooked fruit in Egypt than from meat. It's got something to do with the water they wash it in, water you're not used to."

"Oh, hush, Jameson," Cora scolded. Her maid's perpetual distaste for their location, and constant worry that harm would come to them here, was beginning to grate on her. "I feel perfectly fine."

Yet Cora had awakened after her first hour's sleep more nauseous than she could ever remember being, and she'd dashed for the washroom. She'd been alternately kneeling at the toilet and curling up on the tile floor ever since, desperately regretting her snack.

She whimpered again, wishing she weren't alone, wishing there were someone to dab a cool rag to her forehead, wishing she had the strength to get up and ring for Jameson. Not that it was her _maid_ that she wanted.

Cora took a deep breath, sensing that her stomach had settled for the moment. Slowly, she eased herself back down onto the floor, flinching slightly at the coolness of the tile. She'd rest here for a moment, and then, if she didn't get sick again, she'd see if she could make it back to her bed.

Worst of all was that tomorrow was the day Robert had promised they would all ride camels out to the pyramids. She was _desperate_ to get better and not miss it.

"Cora?"

She had fallen asleep when his voice woke her, and she heard it as though from a great distance, but she looked up to see him standing in the washroom doorway. "Darling, are you ill?"

How had he known? She'd thought off and on about calling out, hoping he'd hear her through the dividing door, but had been dissuaded by the embarrassment of being found in such a state and by fear of his reaction. She could more easily imagine disinterest in Robert's eyes, and annoyance at having been awakened, than concern for her.

Yet now that he was here, he was looking at her so gently that she wanted to cry, and she nodded, not trusting her voice.

He knelt down next to her, and her eyes widened. Was this Robert? Her Robert? The Viscount Downton, kneeling on the floor of a hotel washroom?

Robert seemed to find nothing odd in his own behavior, silently reaching out to stroke her hair back from her face, and she closed her eyes at the caress.

"Shall we get you to bed?" he asked, and she nodded.

He scooped her up easily, and she marveled at how strong his arms felt. They seemed to glide over the carpet back toward her bed, where he set her down and then climbed in after her, never fully letting her go. And then they were lying together, she wrapped in his arms with her head resting against his chest as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

It was then that she noticed, suddenly, that he was still in the evening clothes he had worn to dinner. But wasn't it the middle of the night? "Oughtn't you to change, Robert?" she asked, but he seemed not to hear.

"How do you feel, darling?" he whispered.

Wonderful. Divine. _Loved._ It seemed ages ago that she had ever been sick, now that he had his arms around her. "Robert, I…" she began, wanting to tell him she loved him, but the words wouldn't come. Her lips moved, but no sound came out, her throat straining to call up her voice.

 _"Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar,"_ a chorus of distant voice chanted, and she pulled away, confused. It was the Islamic call to prayer she'd become accustomed to waking briefly to at sunrise, but…hadn't they hours before six o'clock? And wasn't it still dark outside?

And…why was the bed beneath her turning so cold and hard?

 _"Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar…"_

She reached for Robert again, suddenly frightened in her confusion, but her fingers grasped only air.

And then slowly…Cora blinked her eyes open. _"Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah…"_ She was lying on the washroom floor, where she had fallen asleep a few hours earlier and dreamt of Robert, only to awaken at sunrise at the call to prayer.

For a moment, she could not breathe from the pain in her chest at the realization that she had always been alone. _Don't be foolish,_ she told herself as her throat burned with unshed tears. _There is no reason to mourn a Robert who doesn't exist._ For she knew that the real Robert, while he might be kind enough, was not likely to carry a sick wife to her bed and cuddle up with her to comfort her.

With a growing awareness of a dull ache in the hip and shoulder that had been pressed to the cold tile for hours, Cora slowly sat up, yelping in surprise and pain at the sudden pinch in her neck as she moved. Her hand went to it as she forced it to straighten, wincing. Nothing more than what she should have expected after a night on the washroom floor, she thought miserably, but at least she was no longer nauseous.

It would still be a couple hours before Jameson would be here to wake her, and perhaps that would revive her enough to join the rest of the family for the pyramids. So Cora pulled herself off the floor and shuffled back to bed, lying down and closing her eyes as she tried to ignore both the throbbing in her neck and the longing in her heart.

* * *

AN: If you've never been sick in a hotel, it is The Worst. It's happened to me twice (not bad food, just the bad luck of happening to get sick while on a trip), and it's the most miserable thing ever.

Also, I promise to stop torturing 1889 Cora soon.


	9. Chapter 9

**1929**

Robert had set an alarm for quite early in the morning—they had an appointment for eight o'clock, and he knew that they were unlikely to leap immediately from bed, especially on holiday. Before he even opened his eyes, he could hear the rustling of sheets as Cora rolled over, determined to sleep a bit longer.

"Good morning, love," he said, his voice still gravelly with sleep as he forced his eyes open and reached out for her.

"It's not morning," she murmured, pulling away and burrowing into her pillow. "It's still dark out. You've set that thing wrong."

He rubbed a firm hand over her shoulder, trying to induce her into wakefulness, but she was having none of it. "Robert," she whined, "I'm trying to _sleep_."

"Don't sleep too long. There's a car coming for us at seven-thirty."

She turned her head to look at him suspiciously. "What? What time is it?"

"Six. So there's no rush. I gave us extra time, because I know we haven't been very good at rushing in the mornings." He gave her a small smile, but she was still too disoriented and confused to return it.

"But why are we leaving so early?"

"Well, that's a surprise." He stroked her cheek, enjoying the familiar sight of her curls tousled from slumber and her blue eyes still sleepily blinking their way open. "I have a surprise for you, sweetheart." Robert wanted nothing more than to kiss her soundly, for he loved the way she looked in the mornings, before she was made into the countess. A look that had been reserved for him and her maid, and was now his alone.

"I thought we were going to the pyramids today?"

He chuckled. "We are, darling. I promise you won't miss the pyramids again. But there's a surprise, too. It unfortunately had to be booked for the early morning hours, but you've got time to sleep a bit more, if you like. I know you had a hard day yesterday."

Cora reached up for the hand that was cupping her cheek, giving it a gentle squeeze. "No, that's all right. I think I'd rather cuddle with you," she said, moving closer and pressing a soft kiss to his lips.

"Mmm, I was hoping you'd say that," he said as Cora settled against him, her head resting on his shoulder as she draped her arm across his chest, and he dropped a light kiss to her hair.

He and Cora were sometimes intimate in the mornings—as they had been on their first day in Cairo—but that was more often an activity for the night, or a stolen hour in the afternoon. Their habit in the mornings in recent years had been to enjoy a pot of tea brought by a housemaid, snuggling comfortably together as they drank, and then dress and walk down to breakfast, their hands entwined.

As much as he loved making love to Cora, Robert thought he sometimes took even more joy in simply holding her. Without the ecstatic rush their coupling brought, he could study the feel of her in his arms and beneath his fingertips, and savor the scent of her hair, and rejoice at the contented sigh she gave as he gently ran his hand up and down her back. With his mind not otherwise occupied, he could think on what he loved most about her, and consider how grateful he was that she was his. There was, he thought now, simply no better way to spend a morning than by holding a sleepy Cora against his body as he watched the first hint of Cairo's dawn begin to creep in the window.

How had he once come to this place, with its romantic air and its ancient mysteries, and taken such little interest in the beautiful creature he'd married? How had he not questioned the ridiculousness of spending their days (and nights) apart? How had he so willingly missed the spark that so often danced in her eyes as she discovered Egypt?

"I love you," he said suddenly. "You know that, yes?"

Cora laughed softly. "I think I may have heard it mentioned." She stretched up to kiss his cheek. "And I love you, too."

* * *

An hour and a half later, they were both dressed and climbing into the backseat of the Rolls-Royce Robert had hired.

"Sir, you and the lady are going—"

"Yes!" Robert said quickly, talking over their driver. "I'm sure your instructions were accurate."

"So we're not going to the pyramids _first_ ," Cora said, still trying to uncover the day's plan.

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, I already know we're going there, so if that was our destination, you wouldn't be so eager to hide it, I assume."

He smiled mischievously. "I think you should assume nothing, Cora." And he would not be drawn on the subject.

They appeared to be going to the pyramids, but then they drove past the main entrance to the complex, and Cora gave Robert a meaningful look. "See, we're not starting here. I imagine they aren't even open yet." But he gave a dramatic shrug and refused to answer.

A few seconds later, they were turning, approaching the complex from the side, driving directly toward the largest of the structures. "Oh," she said in surprise, "are we–are we allowed to drive so close?"

"When it isn't open, yes." He gave her another grin.

"But if it's not open, why are we—"

"It's open for you, my dear," Robert said as their car rolled to a stop.

There was a young Egyptian man in a suit standing nearby who bowed as the chauffeur opened their door. "Good morning, my lord Grantham," he said in lightly accented English. "And my lady."

"Robert, what is this?" Cora hissed as she followed him out of the car.

"This, my dear, is Dr. Hadad," Robert said, stepping forward to shake the man's hand. "He's an expert on ancient Egyptian art and holds an appointment at Cairo University, and he has privileges here at the pyramids complex. He agreed to meet us before the public opening in order to conduct a private tour."

"For us?" she asked, her breath catching at the thought. Alone in the pyramids…gazing on the wall paintings done thousands of years in the past…accompanied by someone who would know every inch of every carving…

Robert smiled. "For _you_. You knew so much last time, and it was fascinating to listen to you talk, and it occurred to me that it wasn't fair for me to be the only one to learn anything new. So I decided I would have to find someone to conduct our tour this time who could be just as expert of a guide for you as you were for me forty years ago."

Had he really thought her an expert as she'd babbled on about the artwork as a young woman? Cora blushed, nearly as touched at that as she was at the gift of the tour. "Oh Robert, how sweet of you. And Dr. Hadad, thank you." She reached out for the scholar's hand. "I'm very much looking forward to this."

"Happy anniversary, my love," Robert whispered, slipping her arm through his as they followed Dr. Hadad toward the pyramid's entrance. She pressed his arm in silent thanks—thanks not only arranging the tour, but for noticing what she loved, for remembering an afternoon's conversation of four decades earlier, for knowing how he could make her happy.

* * *

AN: If you've been to Egypt, you'll know that apparently, there really isn't that much _in_ the pyramids. Certainly not a lot of art...it's mostly very claustrophobic tunnels. So excuse my dramatic license here, which is more a reflection of what I would _like_ to think is in the pyramids. :-)


	10. Chapter 10

**1889**

"Smile, darling," Robert said, chuckling. The entire family had gone on the pyramids expedition and had disembarked from their camels at the Sphinx, where a photographer had lined them up for an official photo. Robert was in a delighted, expansive mood at the morning's activities, and Cora was struggling to match it. In theory, she was thrilled at her first actual sightseeing and pleased to finally be doing something with Robert (even if accompanied by the others), but the reality was that, while she was no longer truly ill, she still did not feel particularly well. She was tired from a night of poor sleep, exhausted from hours of vomiting, and stiff from her nap on the hard floor, and the last thing her body was in the mood for was a trek on a camel.

But she managed a small smile, and Robert grinned. "We'll show this photo to our grandchildren someday," he said.

 _No, we won't._ Cora felt the familiar twist in her heart at his comment, but she tried not to show it.

The photographer tossed the dark cloth over his head and bent behind the tripod, counting down with his finger before snapping the photo. Cora imagined that she likely looked perfectly miserable.

 _Have another look at the Sphinx,_ she told herself as they all relaxed from their pose. _Isn't she magnificent?_ Yet she could not summon much appreciation at the moment and could not help but think that standing in the middle of the dusty desert was the last place she wanted to be. She suspected she ought to have stayed in bed—as Jameson had urged—and not come this morning, but this was their last day in Cairo, and she had had precious little opportunity to enjoy anything else in Egypt. And when else would she be able to have a look inside the pyramids?

Cora followed the others back to their camels, the reins held by guides in long, white robes. She gave her camel—she had learned, much to her disappointment, that it did not have a name—a small smile as she approached, and the guide tugged on the reins, urging the animal to kneel so she could climb back on.

"Hello, love," she said quietly, stroking its snout. She was quite pleased with these greats ships of the desert close up: their fur was wonderfully soft, and they were actually rather pretty, with extremely long eyelashes to blink away the desert sand. Her steed bleated in reply.

"For heaven's sake, Cora, it isn't a puppy," Violet said acerbically, drawing a giggle from Rosamund, and Cora quickly withdrew her hand, blushing. She gave her guide an apologetic smile and then settled onto the animal's back, seating herself in the precarious sidesaddle position she'd used to reach the Sphinx. Then the guide tapped the camel on the nose, and Cora gave a sharp gasp, gripping the reins tightly as it lurched to its feet. Sitting on a camel as it stood, she had discovered earlier, was a highly unsettling experience: it straightened its back legs first, with its front legs still curled on the ground, so that the rider pitched forward towards the beast's neck. She was prepared for the movement this time, but it did not feel any less like she was going to go tumbling forward onto the camel's head. But after an eternal second, it straightened its front legs as well, and its back was level once again.

Cora had expected this to be rather like horseback riding (which she wasn't very good at it in the first place), but she had not accounted for how much taller these animals seemed, and she reminded herself not to look down. Nor had she been aware of how much rougher a ride on a camel was, and she could not keep from rocking back and forth slightly with every step—a motion that aggravated the sore neck she'd acquired the night before.

But this was fun, she tried to tell herself. She was riding a camel across the sand toward the Giza Pyramids, the last of the Seven Wonders, she had just seen the Sphinx, and Robert was at her side. It was exactly how she'd pictured the Egypt trips in the months leading up to it, and she had been looking forward to this day since they'd arrived, and she was determined to enjoy it. A camel ride might not have been very comfortable, but it was not an opportunity she would have very often, and it was not so very far. Soon the animal would lurch to the ground again, and she would gratefully hop off, and then she'd be able to see firsthand the artwork the ancient Egyptians had left on the walls of their pharaohs' tombs. She was positively salivating at the thought, in spite of how she felt. She'd never dreamed she'd have this chance when she'd studied the art of the ancient world a few short years earlier.

"Are you enjoying your camel ride?" she heard Robert call out from her left.

"Yes," she said with a smile, determined to make that the truth. "They're lovely animals."

He returned her smile. "You look a bit nervous, darling."

"Do I?" Of course she was nervous. The rocking back and forth had her gripping the reins as though they were the edge of a cliff she was dangling from, and she could not help but picture herself sliding down to the sand in a heap of skirts should the creature make the slightest misstep. "It's rather different from a horse, I suppose, but I'm getting used to it."

"I'm glad. I know how interested you were in the camels."

They were more interesting, Cora was quickly deciding, from the ground. "It's a shame they don't name them," she said. "They're actually rather sweet, in their faces."

"I gather they're more like the scads of hounds we keep on the estate for hunting—animals with a job to do—than they are like house pets."

She was beginning to think they'd make more suitable house pets than they made modes of transport.

"But you'll have all morning to get to know yours," Robert went on, smiling indulgently.

All morning? They had almost reached the monuments. "But it looks as though we're nearly—"

Before she could finish her objection, she heard the guides all speaking to the animals in Arabic, yanking sharply on the ropes they used as leads to signal to the camels that they should halt.

Robert nodded to her. "I'll see you at luncheon, then." His guide tapped his camel's nose, and it began to kneel—just as her father-in-law's steed was doing. The ladies' camels, however, remained stubbornly standing.

"Wait! Aren't we all going?" she asked. Surely there was another reason the men were disembarking. Surely she was not about to be denied the pyramids, of all things. Surely not.

"Going where?"

"Into the pyramids, of course!"

Robert struggled to get off his camel, an activity made more difficult by the stunned way he was staring at her. "You want to go _in_?"

"Cora!" Violet's voice was sharp and scandalized. "A tomb is _no_ place for a lady! Surely you weren't entertaining that you and I would be crawling in after their lordships?"

"I—"

"Best to wait out here, darling," Robert said with another indulgent smile. "The pyramids aren't nearly as glorious on the inside as they are on the outside. They're dark and dusty and quite filthy, and there's not even much to see. I've been told there's barely even any color left on the wall carvings."

Yes, but she had so wanted to examine the flecks that remained, to close her eyes and try to superimpose the once-vivid colors onto the etchings, to dream of the ancients who had created them in such dark passages, all by torchlight. Was that so very hard to understand?

"You and Mama and Rosamund are to take a longer ride on the camels," he went on. "Papa and I will meet up with you before noon so we can all return to Mena House for luncheon."

* * *

By the time the Crawley party returned to their hotel a few hours later, Cora was perfectly wretched. The day had grown hot, the strong African sun beating down mercilessly as they'd rode, and the emptiness in her stomach had made her weak and shaky as the morning wore on. Her neck ached terribly now, too, after all the time she'd spent lurching about on the camel.

And, of course, she had missed the pyramids. She almost could not believe it had happened as it had, that she had been so close and so eager and then been denied at the last minute. Nor would there be any second chances; they were leaving for Luxor early tomorrow morning. When Cora thought about it, she wanted to cry, and so she was focusing intently on the ground in front of her as the family walked in the doors of Mena House. There was a complex pattern to the rug, and she was thankful for it, for it distracted her eyes from the tears welling just below the surface.

"My lord, my lady," said the concierge, bowing deeply to Robert's parents. "Your luncheon will be served in her ladyship's suite as soon as you ring."

Cora did not want luncheon, at least not the one that would be served formally in her mother-in-law's rooms; she wanted her bed. She would send her maid to fetch her something to eat while she rested.

"I think I may go and lie down," she said, forcing herself to turn to Robert. She was so angry she could barely speak, but not only with him and his mother—she was also angry with herself, for why had she acquiesced so easily? Why hadn't she insisted? Why hadn't she leapt off her camel and run after him?

He frowned. "Are you all right? You should eat—"

"I'll eat in my own room. And no, I'm not all right. I was sick last night, and I think it's caught up with me."

"You were sick? I didn't know—you should have woken me."

Such a false statement—one that of course cost him nothing, now that the incident was past—made her want to strike him. As though he'd have gotten up with her. As though he wanted to deal with her in the middle of the night, when he barely spoke to her during the days.

"It was something I'd eaten yesterday afternoon," she told him crisply. "I'll be fine by this evening, but I'd like to lie down. If you'll excuse me?"

"Let me walk up with you," he said, tucking her arm through his. "I want to be sure you get there all right."

If only he'd been so unwilling to separate from her a few hours earlier! But she said nothing and let him lead her away from his family and up the grand staircase.

"You're quite pale," Robert said, observing her face as they made their way down the upstairs hallway. "I'm not sure you ought to have gone out this morning, darling."

Perhaps she shouldn't have, but…the tears sprang to her eyes again at the thought of what she'd missed anyway. "I didn't want to miss the pyramids," she said quietly, trying to talk around the growing lump that had lodged itself in her throat.

She must have looked upset, for Robert gave her an alarmed look. "Cora? What's wrong?"

What was wrong? _What was wrong?_ What _wasn't_ wrong about this trip? "I wanted to–to see the pyramids," she choked as she felt the first of the tears creep down her face. "I've–I've been l-looking forward to it for–for _months_!" She was trying to hold back her sobs, but it was no use, and her quiet weeping was quickly turning into an unstoppable flood.

"Shh," Robert soothed, rubbing her arm. "It's all right. I know you didn't feel well, but you did get to see them—"

"No!" She shook her head and pulled away. "I _didn't_! You–you wouldn't let me! You won't let me do _anything_! I'm not allowed to–to go anywhere or see anything. It's not _fair_!"

"Cora…" He was staring at her, stunned at her outburst, and she hated herself for it. She knew better than to cry in front of him, especially over something that must seem so childish—feminine tears, she knew, would only push him further from her, frightening him and confirming that he was right to hold such an unpredictable, emotional creature at arms' length. She was morbidly embarrassed by her sobs, but now she couldn't stop them, and she wished fervently that she had not tried to speak to him when she was tired and in pain and so upset by the morning's events.

Robert reached hesitantly for her. "Cora, please, I—"

But she drew back. "Oh, don't pretend you care. I know you _don't_!"

"But you—we—"

"Just leave me _alone_!" she sobbed. And she picked up her skirts and darted off down the corridor, slamming the door to her room behind her.


	11. Chapter 11

**1929**

"Why are there so many mistakes?" Robert asked. It was their first full day in Luxor, and he and Cora were wandering through the temple built by Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's first female pharaoh, some 3400 years earlier. It was one of the country's most beautiful ancient buildings, a three-story complex built in an almost classical style with its colonnades. Nor could Hatshepsut have chosen a more dramatic location: the temple sat just below a range of cliffs that simultaneously dwarfed it and added to its majesty.

It was the scale of the place that was most impressive to Robert, but Cora was keener on the countless stone carvings inside, and he was happily following along behind her as she examined and remarked upon each wall.

She blinked at his question. "What mistakes?"

"All of these spots." He gestured to a place on the stone. "I've seen them all over in this temple. They're in the midst of a series of carvings, but it's like they've…gouged this part out, as though they weren't happy with what they first had there."

Cora beamed at his observation, and he blushed, pleased to know he'd pleased her. "You're partly right. It was gouged out, and it was because they weren't happy with what they first had there. But the original wasn't a mistake—the gouges were ordered by a later pharaoh."

"What was there originally?"

"Hatshepsut's name."

He must have given her a look of shock, for she laughed at his reaction.

"But she built it," he said. "Why shouldn't her name have been on it?"

Cora's smile faded, her expression softening into something like sympathy or pity or perhaps regret, or some mixture of all three. "Robert, she was a woman," she said gently. "And the next pharaoh didn't like succeeding a woman, so her name was scrubbed from most of her monuments. Sometimes it was replaced by her husband's or her son's…or sometimes it wasn't replaced at all, like in this temple, because the new pharaoh was hoping to claim her work as his own. Ironically, Hatshepsut's building projects are some of the best preserved in Egypt, but you wouldn't know it at first glance."

He'd been almost embarrassed by the information, as though he'd somehow been complicit with Hatshepsut's successor. As though he'd somehow approved of a plan that was clearly wrong.

"So yes," Cora went on, "you'll see a lot of blank spaces for Hatshepsut here. But this over here's quite interesting; it's unusual for an Egyptian figure to be drawn quite this way." And she continued with her tour, seemingly far less troubled by the information she'd relayed than Robert was.

It was still playing on his mind an hour later as they stepped back into the taxi Robert had ordered to return to the hotel, where they would change for dinner.

"That was beautiful," Cora said as they settled into the backseat. "The pyramids may get the prize for best known, but I think that temple's far prettier, and the architecture's much more complex." Her face was still flushed with the excitement of their day, and he took her hand and kissed it.

"Cora, do you know that I'm proud of you? Truly, do you know how proud I am?"

She blushed and gave him a knowing smile. "Yes, I know you're proud of my hospital work."

"No—I mean, yes, of course I'm proud of you for the hospital. Very proud. But I meant—for everything. There's nothing you've done that doesn't make me proud. And I'm very proud of what you've done for Downton."

Cora laughed. "I'm not sure I've really done all that much."

"Cora, you've run Downton. Just as I have—far more than I have, in fact." For while he had sat and met with Murray, and occasionally talked with tenants, and in later years watched his influence wane as Mary and Tom confidently took the reins, it had been Cora who had held the household together. Cora who had commanded dozens of staff, Cora who had managed royal visits, Cora who had watched over their home and their family when he'd been away in the war…Cora who had run a house-turned-hospital in the _next_ war, who had so quietly and calmly and stoically accepted and prepared for their removal to Downton Place, who had silently found the necessary economies in recent years to keep them at the abbey.

"I couldn't have imagined a better or more capable partner," he said. "The success of Downton over the last thirty years has been just as much your accomplishment as mine."

"Do you really mean that?" she asked softly, looking down at their entwined hands.

"I do, sweetheart. I do."

* * *

"Oh _darling_!" Cora exclaimed as they stepped into their room at Luxor's Old Winter Palace. "Are you going to do this every night?"

When they'd checked in yesterday afternoon, it had been to a room filled with bouquets of flowers, rose petals scattered liberally about the bed. She'd taken it to be a first-night-in-Luxor surprise, but now the bed had been made up again with a new collection of rose petals—pink, this time, instead of red, and she wondered if he meant to try a different color every night. She also spotted a couple new arrangements resting in vases that had not been here when they'd left in the morning.

"Of course I'm going to do it every night," he said, brushing a kiss to her cheek. "You've been wonderful every day of our marriage, so of course there are going to be flowers and roses every night."

She stepped immediately into his embrace, his arms wrapping around her waist as hers slipped around his neck. "Thank you. That's very sweet, dearest." Then she kissed him, lingering against his lips

"Shall I show you just how wonderful I think you've been?" he whispered.

"No, not now." Cora sighed regretfully. "I need a bath before dinner after all the dust from the desert, and there isn't time." She kissed his cheek in apology and forced herself to move out of Robert's arms, leaving him for the washroom where she gathered towels and soap and bubbles and turned on the water.

This washroom was not undesirable, but it was nowhere near as luxurious as the one they'd enjoyed in the rented house in Cairo, and the bedroom itself lacked the Moorish décor that reminded her what an exotic holiday this was. Instead, Luxor's Old Winter Palace was an elegant European hotel that would not have been out of place in London or Paris or Vienna. Since its founding in the late nineteenth century, it had been _the_ place to stay for wealthy Europeans on holiday or business in the southern city, and what it lacked in Egyptian atmosphere it made up for in its marble fireplaces and gilded chandeliers.

More importantly to Cora, it was also the hotel where she and Robert had stayed on their 1889 visit. He had tentatively asked her if it was all right to book rooms there, hesitant, she supposed, because of the disaster she'd suffered here last time. But she'd readily agreed, for she didn't hate the place the way he assumed she did; indeed, she was rather fond of it, for it was here that she'd first realized how very much Robert truly did care for her, and here that she'd suspected he might soon come to love her.

Her thoughts made her want him near again, and she left the washroom, knowing she could steal a few minutes in his arms while the tub filled.

She found him seated on the settee, a book in his hands, and he looked up at her return.

"I haven't got long before that's full," Cora said, feeling her cheeks redden at her need for his presence. "But I wanted to come out and sit with you."

He took her hand and pulled her down next to him. "I could always sit with you in the washroom while you take your bath."

"Robert, past history has demonstrated to me that you have great difficulty keeping your hands to yourself when you do that." She giggled at the wounded look this statement provoked and snuggled into his side.

"I'm awfully glad you asked about booking this hotel, rather than just assuming I wouldn't want it and choosing someplace else," she said with a soft sigh as he began to play with her hair. "It's exactly how I remember it, and I love that."

"That's what I was afraid of…I was afraid it would be exactly how you remembered it, and I wasn't sure you would like that."

Cora shook her head and then pressed a kiss to his chin. "I've got very happy memories of our room at the Old Winter Palace."

"I don't. I was terrified for you, and you were hurt so badly and in so much pain, and—"

"That's not the part I like to think of when I remember Luxor in 1889," she said, giving him a soft smile. "What I like to remember is all the time you spent sitting with me and reading to me and holding my hand. How much I could suddenly tell you cared."

He kissed her temple. "I loved you, Cora. I loved you, and it almost knocked me over to realize how much."

His words were whispered in her ear, and a shiver crept down her back at the warmth of his breath against her skin.

"Just a moment," she said, quickly standing and hurrying into the washroom.

"Is it full already?" she heard him call after her, but she didn't answer right away. Instead, she shut off the water, drained the tub, and returned to the settee.

"No," she said, beginning to undo the buttons on his shirt. "But I've decided I don't really care if I'm dusty at dinner."


	12. Chapter 12

**1889**

"How are you feeling this morning, my dear?" Robert asked hesitantly as he stood with Cora and watched the family's trunks be loaded into carriages for their journey to the train station, where they would travel south to Luxor. In truth, he felt terribly guilty about how upset his wife had been yesterday, as well as simply awful about how ill she had seemed. He'd been taken aback to learn that Egypt's sights apparently meant so much to her—it seemed a strange thing for a woman to care about—but he certainly had no objection to taking her places in Luxor. The pyramids would have been rather a bridge too far for a lady, so he was not sorry they were leaving Cairo and thus wouldn't have to argue about a do-over visit, but he could certainly bring her along to some of the temples on his itinerary in the coming days.

"Is it really of any relevance to you how I'm feeling, Robert?" Cora said, in a voice so cold he barely recognized it as hers.

He winced inwardly. "Of course it is. I was worried when you said you'd been sick. Are you better today?"

"Yes, but I doubt it much matters. I'm clearly not going to do anything besides sit in the hotel or follow your mother to teas when we get to Luxor."

"Cora, I'd be happy to take you to see a few places."

"That's quite all right," she said airily. "You needn't bother. I know how loathsome you find my company."

Robert sighed. "Cora…"

But the last of the trunks had been loaded, and his parents were alighting into the carriage, and Cora snapped around and followed them without a backward glance to him. Not that he'd quite known what to say anyway, and not that this was the ideal setting. He would catch her alone in her rooms this evening, where they would have privacy and no interruptions while he tried to make this right.

* * *

Robert let himself into Cora's room at the Old Winter Palace many hours later, finding her at the dressing table, her maid sliding the last of the pins into her hair. She was already in her evening gown, prepared to soon join the family for dinner, which would begin in a few minutes—timing that was by design, for Robert wanted to deliver an apology and a plan for the next few days, not be drawn into hours of weeping.

But if the stiffness in Cora's posture at his entrance did not make it obvious that she was in no mood to accept an apology, her first words did. "Please leave us, Jameson."

"But milady, I haven't fastened your jewels…and I haven't even gotten your gloves for you…"

"I said leave us, Jameson. I can manage."

The maid, likely unnerved at the shortness she'd never heard from this mistress, dropped a quick curtsy and scurried from the room. Cora did not turn to him, picking up the necklace lying in front of her and trying to fasten it in the mirror.

"Do you know I think you've treated me absolutely terribly since we left England?" she said suddenly. Her tone was almost conversational, but there was danger lurking in it, and he didn't respond, as he supposed he was meant to. "I think your behavior's been frankly appalling," she went on. "Your mother's has, too, but most especially yours."

"Cora," he said, keeping his own voice calm in the hopes that she would follow his lead, "I think you misunderstand…I think you think I've been _trying_ to keep the sights from you. When I truly didn't know that you—"

"How could you not have known I was interested, Robert? How could you not have? How many times have I asked about what you've done or seen? How many times have I mentioned how excited I was about the citadel or the camel market or the pyramids or any number of things? How many times?"

Had she said those things? "I—I'm not sure—"

"Of course you're not sure. And do you know why? It's because you don't listen to me. It's because you avoid me. It's because you dread being with me, and when you _do_ have to tolerate me, you ignore what I say and pray that it will be over soon, so that you can run off without me again. Why did you marry me if my company was so unbearable? Why do you so _hate_ to spend time with me? Could you not find an heiress you could stand to be near?"

"Cora, I—I think you're taking this all out of context. You're–you're _overreacting_ —"

It was, of course, the absolute worst thing he could possibly have said. Although she had not yet succeeded with the necklace—her fingers had been trembling with what he suspected was fury throughout the conversation—she flung it onto the table, where the emeralds made a sharp _crack_ against the wood, and spun around in her chair, her eyes flashing.

"Overreacting? _Overreacting?_ I'm _overreacting_ if I expect my husband to spend a _single day_ on holiday with me? I'm _overreacting_ if I spend _months_ looking forward to seeing ancient Egypt, and then instead I'm held prisoners by two _apes_ while you go out and tour the monuments? _Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to see some of this artwork?_ Do you even know that I _like_ art?"

He didn't know that, actually, but this didn't seem quite the moment to say so. Cora stood, and he quickly took a step back, but she was not rounding on him—she was moving toward her trunk, he assumed to search for the gloves Jameson had not yet retrieved.

"I think it's absolutely disgusting," she went on heatedly as she rifled through the trunk's contents. "It's _my money_ you're spending on this trip! No, don't look shocked, and don't disagree—you were practically penniless until you found me, and now you can all afford to gallivant across the Mediterranean on my dime." She found her quarry and snatched two black gloves from the trunk. "Meanwhile, you shove _me_ off to a series of mind-numbing teas and shopping expeditions—" she pulled on the right glove with a snap— "while _you_ get to go waltzing off to museums and camel markets and— _ow_!"

Cora's left glove had been halfway on when she let out a shriek of pain, and she ripped it from her hand, tossing it to the floor. Out of it crawled a small, greenish-yellow scorpion, and, with a realization that made him feel as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach, Robert knew he recognized it from the guidebooks he'd perused before the trip. It was known as a deathstalker, and not undeservedly—this species was among the world's most dangerous.

A sting from a deathstalker was not always fatal, but it certainly could be, and in any event, the consequences were usually quite serious. He was equal parts terrified and outraged, and with a yell of fury, he stomped hard on it, crushing it into the rug.

"Robert!" he heard Cora cry as he did so. "Don't; it'll sting you, too!" And it certainly could have, he realized with horror as he pulled his foot back to examine the crushed scorpion. Had he not had his foot precisely so as he'd stepped down, it would have been quite easy for the creature to reach its tail up and strike his ankle, but he had not thought of that. He'd merely wanted it punished, and wanted to ensure it wouldn't go near Cora again.

"I'm all right," he said. "It's dead. But—"

"Am I going to die?" she asked, cutting him off before he could ask what she was feeling. "Aren't scorpions deadly? Will I die?"

There was nothing short of stark terror on her face, and he longed to soothe it. "No," he said, feeling his stomach twist at the thought that, truthfully, he didn't know. He followed up with an outright lie: "I don't think that kind are very poisonous. You'll be all right, but I think we should get a doctor—"

"It really hurts," she said, tears of pain escaping her eyes to spill down her cheeks as she cradled her arm against her body. "It hurts terribly."

"Here, sit–sit down," he said, guiding her back toward her dressing table chair and wrestling with his own panic. He could not lose Cora. He could _not_. "Sit down, and be still." That seemed to be the thing to do to slow the venom's spread through her body. His mind raced as he tried to think where they would get a doctor…and what a doctor would be able to do, should they find one.

Cora sat down and then pressed her good hand firmly to her lips, closing her eyes and leaning away from the table. He thought that she might be ill—whether from the pain or from some nausea created by the venom, he wasn't sure—but after a moment, she took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and straightened.

"Am I going to lose my arm?" she whispered, looking up at him with eyes wild with fear.

He would not have thought of that, but it did not seem a strange outcome in light of what he knew about the deathstalker. Cora's arm and wrist were already swelling visibly, and so quickly that he was almost surprised he could not see them expanding.

"I doubt that," Robert said softly, rubbing her shoulder. "But I need to run down to the concierge and ask them to fetch a doctor. Can I leave you here for a moment?" He was loathe to abandon her, but swift medical treatment seemed more important.

She nodded, her tears falling faster. "Pl–please hurry," she said, hunching forward to curl around her arm. "This _really_ hurts, Robert."

"I know, darling, I know." And he did—this was Cora, who never complained about anything, so if she was weeping with pain, he imagined it was dizzying. Robert leaned down to press a kiss to her temple. "I'll tell them to get a doctor here as soon as they can."


	13. Chapter 13

**1929**

Cora woke with a contented sigh the next morning. She could feel a warm, comforting weight at her waist, and she did need to open her eyes to know that Robert's arm was still wrapped around her. His scent was enveloping her, too, and she drew closer, taking a deep breath as she settled her face against his chest. She could not conceive of a more perfect way to wake up on the morning of her anniversary than tucked in Robert's arms.

Nor could she think of a more perfect way to spend the eve of their anniversary than what they'd done last night. He'd let her finish unbuttoning his shirt but then stilled her hands. "Let me show you how much I love you, darling," he'd said quietly, and she'd nodded. Then he'd slowly undressed her, stopping to kiss bits of newly exposed skin as he worked, driving her nearly mad with his touches before at last he lifted her and carried her to the bed.

"Take me," she whispered desperately as he laid her down. "Please, take me now."

"Shh." Robert covered her mouth with a soft kiss. "This is all for you, sweetheart." And then she felt his fingers slip inside of her, decades of experience guiding them immediately to the places he knew she liked as she trembled and gasped out his name.

Afterwards, she insisted he join her in the bed, and they made love in such a frenzy she thought her chest might explode.

"Would you be terribly disappointed," she asked as they caught their breath, "if I suggested we cancel our dinner reservation and just have room service here, together?"

"I think I'd be more disappointed if you _didn't_ suggest that," he told her and reached for the phone. They'd dined in bed, reclining for the meal as the ancients had all done, and then spent the evening alternating between passion and tender caresses before they'd drifted off in each other's arms.

There could have been no better prelude, Cora thought now, to a wonderful anniversary.

She opened her eyes so that she could study Robert, her eyes running slowly over every line in his face as he slept on, wanting desperately to tell him she loved him. It was in the mornings, when she watched him sleep, that their love seemed most precious, his stillness and his delicate breaths reminding her of how sick he had been a few years ago, how sick either of them could suddenly be again. It frightened her to think that her world was so fragile, that it could all come crashing down in a moment—as she had thought it was that night in the dining room—but she drew comfort from lying next to Robert, found peace in the steady rise and fall of his chest. There had always been comfort when she was with Robert.

Finally, the temptation was too much, and Cora pressed a soft kiss to his chin.

She felt him stir, and his eyes blinked open. "Cora?" he said sleepily.

"Good morning. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to wake you," she lied.

"That's all right, darling." He kissed her forehead. "No man on earth would mind waking up to a kiss from you."

"Happy anniversary," she murmured, snuggling closer and softly kissing his lips.

"Ah, of course. Happy anniversary, darling." They were silent for a moment, holding each other, and then Robert spoke again. "I've got something for you."

She frowned. She hadn't gotten Robert anything. "I thought this trip was both of our presents?"

"Yes, but then you wouldn't have had anything to remember it by." Robert rose from the bed and crossed to his trunk, where he sifted through the contents, eventually removing a small package.

"Here we are," he said happily, and she smiled, sensing an excitement in his movements that implied he'd been eager to give her this for quite some time.

He took his spot in bed again and passed her the box, brushing a kiss to her cheek as he did so. "Happy fortieth, my love."

Cora slid a fingernail under the tape and began to tear the paper, eventually revealing a flat, rectangular, velvet box—jewelry, she assumed, popping the lid open.

Inside was a necklace of small aquamarine beads separated by little balls of gold engraved with ornate patterns. The necklace came to a slight point, a larger gold pendant suspended from the end. "Oh, how pretty!" she exclaimed. "Thank you, dearest."

And it was certainly beautiful, especially at first glance, but closer examination revealed some of the beads to be chipped and scuffed, and many of them were slightly cloudy, as though the jeweler had not quite finished polishing the raw stones. Robert knew good jewelry, so she was unsure what to think at first, and then he spoke, his voice eager.

"It's more than just pretty. How old would you guess it is?"

Perhaps that explained it—perhaps he'd bought an antique, something worn at an old royal court in the history books. "I don't know…" She had no background in historic jewelry at all. "Two or three hundred years? Maybe 1600?"

He grinned. "Older."

"1500?" She tried to envision it on the neck of a Tudor queen.

"That's about right, but not in the way you mean. It's from roughly 1500…B.C."

Cora was so stunned that she nearly dropped the box. " _Robert!_ You can't be—you're not _serious_ , are you?"

"I'm quite serious. I was told it was from the middle of the second millennium before Christ. Egyptian, of course."

"Where…where on earth did you buy this?" She could not imagine how much it might have cost. "Did you get it here?" They had barely been separated…

Robert shook his head. "No, I bought it a few months ago from an auction house in London. There was a sale of ancient jewelry, and I thought perhaps there'd be something Egyptian that might suit you. And when I saw this…I thought immediately of your eyes, and I knew I had to have it for you."

Her eyes? How odd to hear her own eyes compared to something so rare and so valuable. She ran her finger over the beads reverently, trying to comprehend their age. It was mind-bendingly strange to think that the original owner of this necklace was as far removed in the other direction from the time of Christ as she was from the fall of Rome.

"Shall I put it on you?" Robert asked, and she drew in her breath.

"Do you really think…should I wear it?" she asked, laying her hand lightly on her neck and imagining its weight there. "Shouldn't it…shouldn't we display it at Downton? In a glass case of some sort?"

"Of course you should wear it," he said gently. "I think it should be displayed around your neck. May I?"

Cora nodded, too awed to speak, and he carefully lifted the necklace, settled it against her skin, and fastened it. "There…you've made it even prettier."

"I can't imagine how rare it must be to own something so old," she said softly, looking down at the jewels and then smiling up at Robert.

"Of course it's rare. That's why it was perfect for you." She was not sure what he meant, and it must have showed in her face, for he went on. "You're so rare, Cora, and so precious. I don't think there's someone like you more than once in a millennium—so I couldn't think of what better to give you for our anniversary than something equally rare."

Cora felt a blush rising into her cheeks, but Robert had not finished. "The way you looked at it when you found out how special it was?" He laid his hand gently against her cheek, his fingers stroking lightly. "That's how I think of you, my darling. My jewel, my treasure."

She blinked back her tears and leaned in to kiss him.

* * *

AN: Yes, you can totally buy ancient jewelry! It's expensive, but not as expensive as you might think: it's not hard to find a piece for $1,500-3,000 USD. There's enough of it floating around in the world that it comes up for auction relatively frequently. Christie's auction house in New York has an ancient jewelry sale every year. (And yes, I want a piece—life goals for when I have more money, LOL!)

Happy Easter! Although of course Sunday is over by now for most of the world. :-)


	14. Chapter 14

**1889**

Cora moaned softly in her sleep, fidgeting slightly, and Robert held his breath, thinking that surely, she was about to wake.

"Cora?" he whispered, but she did not respond, and he sighed heavily. He dipped the cloth he was holding back into the bowl of water on the nightstand and dabbed it to her forehead, trying to keep her cool as she slept in Luxor's oppressive heat.

Hours earlier, he had rushed downstairs to the front desk, breathlessly explaining what had happened to his wife and begging for the city's best doctor. He'd been assured that one would be sent immediately and been told to have Cora lie down, and one of the Egyptian staff had offered to come upstairs with him for whatever first aid could be offered in the meantime.

She'd more than taken care of the lying down, they discovered when they entered her room—in Robert's absence, she had fainted and was crumpled in a heap on the floor. Terrified, he'd frantically searched for a pulse and found it, then lifted her and carefully laid her on her bed, where the other young man had tied a thick band around her upper arm, explaining that it would help to contain the venom. Robert had tried to ignore the fear in the Egyptian's eyes at his mention of the scorpion species.

And then the man had left, and Robert had sat there, waiting for what seemed like days for a doctor to arrive, clutching Cora's uninjured hand in his.

An English doctor had come eventually and explained that—much as Robert had thought—there was little that could be done,* but he had taken blood from Cora's arm, hoping to withdraw some of the poison with it. He did not believe it was likely to travel to her heart, or that her life was in danger—such cases, he said, usually evidenced themselves immediately, and Cora's heartrate was still normal. She would wake eventually, he told Robert, and likely be ill, and in great pain, but there was no reason to believe she would not recover. Her arm might be a different story—most of her forearm was now a violent shade of purple, and the entire limb had swelled grotesquely. The doctor would return, he promised, to determine "whether anything would have to be done with it," a phrase that had made Robert's heart skip a beat.

 _Am I going to lose my arm?_ He'd heard Cora's words repeat over and over in his mind all evening, her voice tight with fear.

"I'm so sorry, darling," he whispered now for the hundredth time, his fingers caressing her cheek as he felt tears clog his throat. "I'm so, so sorry."

For the whole incident was entirely Robert's fault: if his wife had died, he would have only had himself to blame, and if she did lose her arm, or if there were any permanent damage, that would be down to him as well. All of the pain she would suffer in the coming weeks would also be at his own hand. He, her husband, who was supposed to protect her.

Not that he could have known the scorpion was resting in her glove; not that he could have prevented the attack. But if he hadn't entered her room—and he wouldn't have had to enter her room had he not upset her earlier—Jameson would have been there to discover the creature before it harmed anyone. After all, he and Cora had laughed earlier about Jameson's deep mistrust of everything in Egypt, and Cora had rolled her eyes at the maid's paranoia and tendency to shake out every garment she withdrew from the trunk.

Nor would Cora, had she not been so angry with Robert, have failed to notice the bulge in her glove before she'd slipped it on. The scorpion was several inches long; she would not have missed it had she not been distracted, and she would not have been distracted had he not put his foot in it so many times on this trip and in the months since their wedding.

But now Cora had been hurt terribly, and all thanks to his failings as her husband.

It was also, he thought as he bent to brush a kiss to her forehead, not the first time he had hurt her.

Cora was quite wrong that he hated to spend time with her, that he found her company unbearable, that he did not care about her. In truth, Robert cared for Cora a great deal, a great, _great_ deal. He admitted to himself that he did, at times, avoid her—but not because he did not want to be near her. Rather, he was almost frightened to spend time with her, frightened that she might decide he fell short of what she wanted in a husband, frightened that he would bore her or upset her or speak incorrectly. Frightened that he did not know what to say, the he did not and could not understand her. She was, in Robert's mind, a remote, exotic, untouchable being that he had no real right to, a work of art that he would do best to hold in awe from a distance. He did not feel equal to being a husband, certainly not _her_ husband, and so it had been very easy to accept their frequent separation as natural.

Yet it was not what Cora wanted—that much was abundantly clear. She had not only been miserable in Egypt; she'd been miserable since she'd married him.

She did not want to be left to do feminine things and admired from afar; she wanted Robert's time and Robert's company and Robert's attention. She wanted to know that he was in awe of her, to hear this from him, not to have to surmise it on her own. She very clearly had _not_ surmised it on her own.

At last she woke with a sharp cry, her eyes fluttering open only to be squeezed shut again as the pain carved itself into her face.

"Cora?" His hand went immediately to rest on her abdomen, trying to calm her. "You're all right, darling. You're all right."

"Robert?" she whispered hesitantly.

"I'm right here, darling. I'm right here." He raised her good hand to his lips for a kiss as she opened her eyes again, then held it against his jawline. Robert tried to smile, but he imagined that his own worry made it look more like a grimace, and Cora did not return it, biting her lip and moaning softly.

"How do you feel, darling?" he asked.

"Like my arm is being sawed off with red-hot knives," she said, and he squeezed her hand. "But it's still there, I guess." She glanced to her left and gasped sharply at her arm's appearance. "Oh…"

"I'll ring for some ice for you, darling," he said, wanting to distract her from any questions about the limb. "That should help a bit with the pain."

He tried to set her hand down to turn for the bell pull, but she grabbed hold of him.

"Wait," she said hoarsely. "Robert, I think I need to… Could you find a bucket of some kind?"

Oh—oh, this was what the doctor had warned him might happen when she woke: "It's not unusual for sting victims to be quite ill from the venom."

Frantically, Robert cast about, not sure what he would give her. "Cora, I…"

"There, that bowl," she said, catching sight of the water he'd been using for her head and pushing herself up on her right elbow. "Give me that, please."

No sooner had he moved to hold it under her chin than she was sick into it. He reached one hand behind her head, gathering the curls Jameson (muttering darkly about "this godforsaken country" the entire time) had taken down earlier while Cora had slept and holding them back and out of the way. Robert was dimly aware that perhaps he should have been disgusted—that he _would_ have been disgusted under normal circumstances—but he was too busy feeling his guilt and his worry and his concern shred his insides to think about it.

"Are you finished?" he asked as she caught her breath, her shoulders still heaving, and she nodded. "Do you want to lie back down, or would you rather sit up?"

"Sit up, please, I think."

He stacked pillows behind her on the bed, eased her back against them, and then carefully wiped her face and her mouth with the damp cloth. "My poor darling," he murmured as their eyes met, hers dark with suffering as she stared miserably up at him. He bent and kissed her forehead, unsure how she'd take it—as much as he wanted to press kisses over every inch of her now, he knew she was likely still angry about the argument they'd been in the midst of when she'd been stung. But Cora appeared too miserable to fight, merely whimpering softly in response.

"Let me get you a glass of water." He left with the bowl she'd thrown up in, rinsed it out in the washroom, and returned with a glass he'd found on the sink. Cora took a few small sips, rinsing her mouth.

"Would you like me to ring for Jameson to bring you some ice, darling?" he asked, taking the glass from her when she was done.

She nodded. "Yes, please. My arm hurts terribly. Where is she?"

"Who, your maid?" She nodded again as he stood to pull the cord. "I imagine she's composing a telegram to send to _The Lady_ back home so she can advertise for a new position. She was ranting as she changed your clothes about how she's not paid enough to be dragged off to a place with deadly, vicious animals."

The corners of Cora's lips turned up in what might have been the ghost of a smile. "But why isn't she here now?"

Robert shrugged. "I didn't think we were both necessary, so I told her she could go down. Did you want her? When she gets here, I can ask her to stay with us."

"I'm going to be sick again…no, not now," she said as he quickly reached for the bowl. He'd brought it back with him, suspecting it would be needed more than once. "I can just tell I will be, at some point. It wasn't a one-time thing."

"Yes, that was what I was afraid of." Why were they discussing this? Of course she was likely to be sick again before the night was over.

"And you haven't got to stay."

Did she hate him and want him to go? She would have every right—

"Your lordship?" Jameson opened the door. "Is her ladyship—oh, my lady! You're awake…how are you?"

"Not very well." The thinness in Cora's voice made Robert draw in his breath sharply as he imagined leaving her alone with her maid, dependent only on occasional reports of her condition.

"Jameson, would you go and get Lady Downton some ice for her arm?"

"Yes, milord." The maid sighed. "Although I don't imagine it will last very long in this accursed heat," she muttered.

"Then get her quite a lot of it!" he snapped, in no mood for borderline impertinence. Jameson must have sensed this, for she dropped a quick curtsy and darted out of the room.

"Do you want me to go?" he asked Cora when her maid had gone. "I don't want to leave you, but—"

"What?" she said sharply.

"Would you rather I left, and Jameson—"

"No, the last part. What did you say, after that?"

"You mean, 'I don't want to leave you'?"

"Don't you?" Cora's voice cracked, and tears began to spill from her eyes. "Don't you _always_ want to leave me?"

"Oh, my darling." He sat down on the bed and carefully took her halfway into his arms, leaving her left arm untouched and laying a kiss on the top of her head. "My sweet darling." She didn't fight him, laying her head against his shoulder as she sobbed, although he was not sure whether to take that as a willingness to hear him and to be comforted by him or as simply physical weakness.

"I don't want to leave you," he said. "Certainly not now, when you're hurt and sick. _Especially_ not now. But Cora, I don't ever want to leave you. I don't _like_ to leave you; I just…I don't avoid your company because I don't _like_ you—I–I _do_ , very much, darling, but…"

"Then why do you do it?" she hiccupped. "You don't deny you _do_ it!"

"Because—first you must understand that it's not _unnatural_ in my world, and it hadn't occurred to me that it wasn't natural for you, and I'm desperately sorry for that, darling. I'm _desperately_ sorry that I've hurt you this way. But I do it because…" He dropped his voice to a whisper, feeling his face grow hot with shame and glad she could not see it. "…because I don't know how to do this."

"How to do what?" she sniffed.

"Be a husband. Be _your_ husband." She sniffed again. "I–I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm going to try, darling."

"All I w-want you to do is to–to spend time with me," she whispered, nestling closer to him. "And to c-care about me."

"I do care about you, darling," he said fervently, kissing the top of her head again. "I care about you very much. And I hate that that has been so unclear to you, and that I have made you so miserable for so many months. Oh, forgive me, Cora!"

He felt her nod her head. "Of course I will," she murmured, and he gave her another kiss in response.

"I'm sorry about this, too," he whispered in the silence that followed. "I hate that you were stung because of me."

"I'm not sure that's quite true."

"It is. If you hadn't been upset with me, Jameson would have been there and would have found the scorpion."

"But you couldn't have known," she said softly. "It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry all the same, darling. And I hate to see you hurting."

Cora snuggled closer at his words, and he kissed her again. She seemed unable to stem the flow of her tears, but he did not mind, for it gave him an excuse to keep holding her, rocking her gently and stroking her back as he hummed softly in her ear, trying to soothe her.

"Milord?"

"Jameson." He had not heard he door open and was now blushing furiously at having been found with his wife in his arms. As quickly as he could, he moved Cora back against the pillows and stood, turning to face the maid, who had a bucket in one hand and a stack of towels balanced in the other.

"My poor lady," she said softly, observing the tears that Cora was now wiping away. She gave Robert a look that implied he had not only been slightly culpable in the sting but had _invented_ scorpions in the first place. "I've brought the ice, sir, and some towels to wrap it in," she went on, her voice much harsher now that she was addressing Robert directly.

"Yes, thank you, Jameson," he said firmly, taking it all from her. "That will be all for tonight." She exited, and he unfolded one of the towels so that it could be wrapped around a few chunks of ice. The maid had brought large pieces, he was pleased to see, that would melt slowly, especially in the mass she'd assembled in the bucket.

"Darling, how would you like this?" he asked.

"Just…set it next to my arm. I don't think I can stand to have anything resting on it."

He tucked it carefully alongside her forearm, afraid to hurt her, but she did not flinch as the towel touched her bruised skin.

"Thank you," Cora said softly, and he pressed another kiss to her forehead before he sat down again in the chair next to the bed, taking her uninjured hand back into his. After a moment, she gave a small sigh. "This does help, quite a lot."

"Good. I'm glad, darling."

"You keep calling me that," she said.

He gave her a small smile. "I'm sorry; I can't seem to help it."

"I don't mind. It's a lovely thing to hear." There was a light bit of pressure from her fingers that he took as a weak attempt to squeeze his hand, and he squeezed back.

"Would you get some ice for my head, too?" she asked after a few minutes of easy silence. "I've got a dreadful headache."

After everything she'd been through in the last several hours, he didn't doubt that. "Of course, darling." The word drew a tiny, fleeting smile from her, and he kissed her temple.

Robert rose and packed some more ice into a towel and then sat back down, pulling his chair closer so that he could easily lean forward and hold the ice gently against her forehead.

"Thank you," she murmured again, closing her eyes.

"Do you think you could sleep some more if you tried?" he asked quietly, watching her countenance slowly relax. "It's quite late."

"I think so. I'm exhausted."

"I'm sure you must be, darling. Here…" He raised her up so that he could flatten her pillows again and then helped her lie back, adjusting the ice by her arm and settling the other towel against her forehead again.

"Will you stay?" she whispered. Her right hand reached blindly for him, and he caught it in his. "Please stay."

"Of course I'll stay. Cora, I…" The word _love_ died on his lips. "I…" he tried again. But it was no use; he was too fearful and nervous to say it.

"Yes?"

"I…want to stay," he amended. "Of course I want to stay."

He kissed the palm of her hand and gave it a soft squeeze, hoping she would hear what he could not say.

* * *

*In 1889, there was no such thing as the anti-venom that people bit or stung by poisonous animals are given today. (Anti-venom was first invented to deal with cobra bites in Vietnam in the 1890s, so we're almost there, but not quite.) So if you were stung by a deathstalker for much of the 19th century or earlier, there was very little that could be done for you. Of course, not everybody who was stung died—it was mostly a matter of luck, depending on whether the poison reached your heart or remained localized.


	15. Chapter 15

**1929**

"Darling, you really are beautiful," Robert said softly as she pulled her gloves on, ready to leave for dinner. "Truly."

Such simple, spontaneous declarations on his part had always made her blush far more than any lengthy speech or romantic love letter. "Thank you," she said, feeling the pinkness warming her cheeks at his words and his soft gaze. She touched the ancient stones circling her neck. "This necklace…it's lovely."

"It's got nothing to do with the necklace, which you are far outshining."

Robert, who as always had been finished first, had been sitting on the sofa, watching her dress, his expression more thoughtful than hungry. He stood now and joined her at the dressing table, settling his hands on her bare shoulders with a soft caress to each. "Sometimes I suddenly realize how truly remarkable it is," he murmured, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

"What is?" Cora asked.

"Your beauty." He bent to brush a reverent kiss to her cheek. "You're simply gorgeous, my dear."

She gave a soft, delighted, "Oh!", both embarrassed and pleased at his words, and covered one of his hands with her own. "But we must be going, dearest. We've got dinner reservations, and it _is_ our anniversary."

He sighed and stepped back so that she could stand. "I'm glad I left ample time in our schedule to enjoy our room this afternoon. I'm not sure I could have stood it otherwise."

Cora laughed, remembering the previous day's missed reservation and retrieving her handbag from where she'd tossed it on the bed. "Are you ready? I think I am."

"No, you're not…you need a wrap; it's cooler now that the sun's gone down. Is there something in your trunk that will match?"

She smiled, biting back a giggle as she watched Robert paw uncertainly through the delicate fabrics in her trunk. As helpful as he'd been with her wardrobe in her time without a maid, she had never quite gotten used to the sight of him rooting through women's clothing, his face set in deep concentration as he tried to comprehend it all.

"There is," she said. "I think the silver satin would be nice…on your left." She was wearing a teal blue evening gown covered in silver beadwork forming swirling stars.

Robert withdrew the piece from her trunk and, rather than hand it to her, wrapped it around her shoulders himself, much as Baxter would have done, and Cora smiled her thanks.

"Will you be warm enough in the night air, darling?"

"Yes—are we dining outside?" she asked curiously.

"Not quite _outside_ ," he answered with a mysterious smile, and she took this to be another of his surprises—which had improved greatly since the initial train mix-up. "But there might be a certain amount of…exposure."

"I can't imagine what you've got planned for tonight," she said, snuggling up to him in the backseat of their taxi a few minutes later. "You've already made this the most romantic day ever."

And he had. After presenting her with the ancient necklace first thing that morning, he had told her to dress for the desert for a surprise, and then they had been driven out of the city to a camel farm, where they had both climbed onto the same steed, a camel used to bearing two passengers. Sitting with Robert's arms around her had brought back sweet memories of her last camel ride, and she had squeezed the hands that he'd wrapped around her waist. They'd then been led on a ride along the banks of the Nile, under swaying palm trees and past banana groves and sugarcane fields and farms that didn't appear to have changed since ancient times, all while the winter light danced on the river. It made for a romantic morning, but when she'd told him she thought it was the loveliest surprise ever, he'd shaken his head, his eyes twinkling.

"This isn't the surprise," he said. "This is the _way to_ the surprise. I just thought you'd prefer a camel to an automobile, because I remember how interested you were in them last time. Your _real_ surprise is a far grander method of transport."

It was indeed, for they soon arrived at a hot air balloon parked in an open field, an attendant eagerly awaiting their arrival and clutching a large picnic basket.

"Robert…" she whispered, not sure what to say.

"Happy anniversary, my love," he said, kissing her cheek. "You saw so little of Luxor last time that I wanted to make sure you didn't miss a single thing on this trip, and how better to do that than to view it from above?"

She could not have imagined anything better once they were afloat. From here, they could see the mountains and the cliffs, the desert sand dunes, the flowing Nile and the verdant trail of green alongside it, the ancient temples and the modern downtown, and all in one glance as Luxor spread out beneath them. Robert stood behind her as she peered over the basket's edge, his arms around her waist and his chin resting on her shoulder.

"Are you all right, darling?" he'd asked in her ear, speaking over the loud roar of the gas fire above them.

It was then that Cora had realized she was weeping. "Yes," she said, brushing her tears away. "It's only that it's so very beautiful, and this is such a very lovely surprise."

She was not sure how long they stood like that, Robert pressing occasional kisses to her neck and shoulders, but eventually he drew back to open the picnic basket, revealing a sumptuous lunch and a bottle of fine champagne, and they had dined two thousand feet above Luxor.

Once they landed, they returned to the hotel, this time by car, where she'd felt herself high over the ancient city once more as Robert took her to the stars again and again.

Robert kissed the bridge of her nose, bringing her back to the present. "I'm glad you enjoyed it, my love. I'm glad I've made you happy."

"You always make me happy, Robert," she said softly, stretching up to brush her lips to his.

Their taxi took them outside of the city, and her mind began to run wild with possibilities of where they might be eating—a Bedouin camp? There were clearly no restaurants out here. At last they stopped a short distance from a series of old stone pillars, and she looked skeptically at her husband, who was already reaching for his door handle.

"Yes, we're here," he said in response to her raised eyebrows. "Just down this way."

Puzzled, Cora followed him. Behind the pillars, sunk low into the earth—a full building level beneath the 20th century ground—was what appeared to be a roofless, ancient home, the few stone walls that were still standing crumbling romantically. It reminded her of the streets of Pompeii, which she'd toured with Robert as a young bride, but much smaller in scale—this was one small building, not an entire city or even a neighborhood.

What was more, the ruin was lit by several flaming torches, and in the center, a small table had been set for two with flickering candles and a bouquet of red roses.

"Where…where are we?" she managed to say, her mouth dry in shock and awe. Did Robert intend for them to have dinner here?

"A merchant's home that was excavated some thirty years ago," he said calmly, leading her down a set of wooden steps added by some modern archaeologist. "Tourists can visit it during the day, but with so many royal sites in Luxor, it hasn't proved hugely popular."

"And we're…are we…"

He paused, turning back to her and smiling. "Yes, love. We're having dinner here, under the stars."

She could not quite wrap her mind around it. "But…Robert…however did you…"

"I'd read about it, and then I wrote to Almina Dennistoun,* who arranged it for me. But come—dinner will get cold."

"There's–there's food out here?" she asked, continuing down the steps after him.

Robert laughed. "Of course there's food—it's not dinner without food."

And then she heard an Egyptian accent call out of the darkness, "Are you ready, my lord?" A young man—a boy, really—stepped out from the desert darkness into the light spilling from the complex.

Robert nodded. "Yes, yes. Tell the others they may serve the meal."

"You've–you've hired staff?"

He laughed again. "Well, they were hardly going to come with a house that's been empty for thousands of years!"

Having stepped onto the stone floor of the old house ahead of her, Robert turned and reached for her hand as she took the last stair herself. "My lady," he said softly, kissing her cheek as she tucked her arm into his.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, glancing down as they approached the table. At her feet was a gorgeous mosaic of tiles that must have once shone like jewels. "I didn't see—is the whole house like this?" She _loved_ mosaics, the finishing touch of art in so many old buildings, that final flourish that announced that beauty had been so valued as to have it _everywhere_ , even underfoot.

"Not every inch, but a great deal of it," he said, smiling. "That's why I thought you'd like it."

"You knew I liked mosaics?" She could not think when the topic would have come up in the last forty years. "I don't remember telling you that."

"You did, when we were here in '89. We were back in Alexandria on our way home, and there was a very pretty design of a young woman inlaid in the floor of the hotel lobby, and you told me how magical you thought it was. Of course, that city's full of mosaics, and on our first day there, my father and I had seen dozens of them as we'd toured. I wanted so very much to take you and show you every one of them, but I knew you still weren't well enough to drag around Alexandria. So I vowed that next time we came to Egypt, I would be sure you saw your fill of them."

And he'd remembered it, four decades later, caring enough to find a way—a very complex, extravagant, beautiful way—to incorporate it into their anniversary dinner. Cora felt her eyes fill with tears, and Robert must have seen them in the torchlight, for he kissed her temple.

"Don't cry, love," he teased gently. "You're meant to be happy."

"I am happy," she whispered, squeezing his arm. "You make me very happy."

He pulled out her chair, and they sat down, several young Arabs in coats and tails suddenly spilling over the walls with dishes and drinks, a lavish meal of lamb tagine and spice-filled meats and vegetables and rices and nuts.

"This has been," she told him as they ate, "the most wonderful trip ever."

"You mean, you've enjoyed it even more than the time you got stung by a deadly scorpion?" he asked, his eyes dancing in the candlelight.

"Well, it's been almost that good," she said, laughing. "Seriously, Robert, I've loved every moment of this. Thank you."

"We're not done yet, darling. We've got several more days in Luxor, and we'll linger in Alexandria before we leave for England."

"I know, but we've seen so very much so far—things I never dreamed I'd see after we left the first time. And I've loved everything we've seen. I think the pyramids and Hatshepsut's temple were my favorites."

Robert took a thoughtful sip of wine, and she paused, sensing that he was about to speak. "The sites we've seen have been incredible," he said after a moment's silence. "I love Egypt for its history, yes, and for its ancient monuments. But those aren't the main reasons I've long felt so strongly for it, and the temples and the pyramids have not been at all the most awesome things I've seen here. That, my darling, has been you."

"Me?" she asked, not quite understanding.

"Yes, you. I've seen so many wonderful things in you while we've been in Egypt. Our first visit here…I think that was the first time I saw you clearly, the first time I understood anything about you. The first time I saw how very much you wanted to truly be my wife, and the first time I saw how very much I cared for you. And I saw that you were sweet and patient and kind and gracious—I don't think you had a moment's ill temper while you recovered—and I saw how very much there was to you and to your mind as you talked on about ancient art and led me through the pyramids on our way back through Cairo. And this time…I've seen again how much I love you, what a remarkable jewel you are.

"That's why I love Egypt, Cora. Because I've seen you so clearly here."

She would not have known what words to say, even if her throat had not been too clogged with tears to speak, but she found she did not need them. Instead, she did the only thing she wanted to do, the only thing that felt right: she stood, darted around the table, and sat down on his lap to kiss him.

* * *

*Almina Dennistoun was the former Almina Herbert, Countess of Carnarvon, who was once mistress of Highclere. She and her late husband had spent a great deal of time in Egypt, and he sponsored the expedition that uncovered King Tut's tomb. I thought it was likely that she would have connections in Egypt at this point and would be an acquaintance who could arrange this meal for the Crawleys.

AN: The ruin where Robert and Cora have their anniversary dinner is totally fictitious (but wasn't it romantic?). Camel rides along the Nile and hot air balloon trips over the city, however, are both apparently huge things in Luxor.

Cora and Robert's 1929 trip may not be over for them, but we're going to leave our darlings here to enjoy the rest of their 40th anniversary trip. I have no doubt it will be terrifically fun. ;-) I do have one more chapter, though, of 1889 still to post. It should be up next weekend, so see you then!


	16. Chapter 16

**1889**

"The Allens had now entered on the sixth week of their stay in Bath; and whether it should be the last was for some time a question, to which Catherine listened with a beating heart. To have her acquaintance with the Tilneys end so soon was an evil which nothing could counterbalance."

Almost a full week had passed since Cora had been stung, and she was stretched out on the chaise on her balcony, trying to ignore Luxor's baking heat and listening to Robert's soft voice read _Northanger Abbey_ , as he had done for days. Her arm still throbbed, headaches and nausea were still her frequent companions, and she still did not think she had the strength to walk even as far as the lobby, but there had been something sweet about the recent days, too. Robert had scarcely left her side, and she suspected she'd spent more hours with him in this hotel than in the rest of their marriage combined.

Much to her delight, he'd even begun to sleep in her bed. After spending the first night dozing in the chair next to her, he'd hesitantly asked if he might lie down with her. "If you don't mind, that is," he'd added quickly.

"Of course I don't mind," she murmured, unable to hold back her smile. "Please. I…want you here."

"I'll be careful of your arm," he said. "I'll keep my distance so I don't accidentally brush against it."

This, too, had delighted her—not because he would be sleeping far from her, but because it meant that, were she not injured, perhaps he would have slept right next to her. Perhaps he would have even taken her in his arms and cuddled her. And perhaps he still would, once she'd recovered.

Robert's parents and sister had returned to Cairo after four full days in Luxor, continuing on with their itinerary and leaving the young couple to return to England on their own schedule, once Cora was well enough for the voyage. This had made the last two days all the more wonderful, as she'd known there would be no interruptions, and Robert would not be expected to join his family for meals.

She sighed softly, wishing the afternoon heat would ease. Yet she knew it would only get worse—it was still too early for the day's temperature to have peaked, and the cooler evening hours were a long way off.

"I hate this heat for you, darling," Robert said, breaking his reading. He reached for the small towel he'd been using in an effort to keep her cool, dipping it into the bowl of water on the table to his left and then dabbing it against her forehead, temples, and neck. "I'm sure it only makes you feel worse."

She closed her eyes, trying to savor the cool sensation and ignore the constant stabbing in her arm.

"What would you think of trying to travel back up to Cairo in a day or two?" she heard him ask. "I think you're strong enough to get to the train, but I know it's not a very comfortable ride under the best of circumstances."

Cora's eyes fluttered open. "It's much cooler in Cairo."

"Yes, that's why I'd like to get you there. I think you'd recover better in better weather."

She nodded. "I can bear the train ride." Anything to get out of this oven.

He kissed her forehead. "Good. I'll order our tickets." He took up the novel again, but she shook her head slightly.

"I've got another headache," she said, her voice small, even to her own ears. "I think I'd like to lie down." She wondered at times if she would ever feel entirely well again.

"Oh _darling_ ," he breathed, brushing her curls back off her face in a soft caress. His eyes took on that dark intensity they'd often held over the last few days, as though he felt her pain just as physically as she did.

 _He's going to love me,_ she realized suddenly as she held his gaze. _Not yet, but he'll love me soon. He wouldn't look at me that way otherwise._

Cora closed her eyes in relief at this thought, too spent to feel any emotion but a sudden sense of calm, but she suspected Robert took it as pain, for she felt his lips brush lightly against her temple. "Come," he whispered. "Let's get you to bed."

She let him help her up and walk her slowly back into the room and over to her bed. She did not need his help to get around her room and had not for several days, but she liked the protective way he tucked her good arm in his so much that she did not want to object.

"Would you like to lay your head in my lap again while you rest?" he asked quietly as she sat down.

 _Would_ she? What sort of question was that? Of course she wanted to lie with her head in Robert's lap, to doze so close to him, to feel his fingers running gently through her hair.

"Yes, please."

He moved to join her on the bed, sitting up against the pillows as she stretched out, settling against him. Cora murmured softly as his hand made its first comforting pass over her hair.

"Would you like me to ring for some ice, darling?" she heard him ask after a moment.

Not if it meant he had to move! "No," she whispered, "this is fine."

This was _more_ than fine. She did not think she could have been more contented.

* * *

"Are you comfortable?" Robert asked, and she felt the vibration of his speech against her back, where his chest was pressed. "This doesn't bother your arm?"

"No, it's not hurting my arm," she told him with a smile, "and I'm as comfortable as one can be on a camel." He chuckled softly, and her heart swelled at the warm sound in her ear.

She and Robert had returned to Cairo a week ago on a hellish train ride that she'd quickly realized she was, indeed, not quite ready for. She'd remembered that their previous journeys in Egypt had involved rough tracks, that they'd bounced around on their seats and been tossed from side to side on the way down to Luxor, yet it was another matter entirely with an arm that still felt as though she'd stuck it straight into the fire. Robert had held her firmly against him the entire way, bracing her body and attempting to hold her arm secure. It had helped a bit, but not enough to hold off the tears that would gather in her eyes after a series of particularly harsh jolts.

These he would gently kiss away.

Cora was almost disoriented at this new Robert, this husband who cared so deeply and who ached for her and who seemed just on the verge of loving her. Had this been the true Robert all along, she wondered? Had he been so uncertain of her and of how to speak to her that all this had been hidden underneath for months now?

She'd trembled with exhaustion when they'd at last arrived at their hotel—Shepheard's* this time, Robert considering Mena House's distant location impractical for convalescence—and Jameson had quickly readied her for bed. Robert had crawled in with her before her maid was even out the door, carefully cuddling her to him and apologizing for having moved her from Luxor.

But she shook her head, managing a faint whisper that she was glad to be out of the intense heat.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Yes, darling, I think you'll feel better here, once you get some rest."

But in truth, she did not feel so terrible when she was in his arms, and she knew in later years, what she would remember of the train would not be the sharp jolts but the strength of Robert's embrace. And tonight…tonight was so very similar to the dream she'd had last time they'd been in Cairo, her dream of a Robert who had cared.

Her husband's thoughts must have been on their previous visit, too, for he suddenly whispered, "Darling, we'll wait for you to be stronger, but I promise we won't leave Cairo until you've seen the pyramids."

Her eyes had flown open, and he had chuckled. "Sleep now, dearest. We'll make plans for the pyramids tomorrow."

And after a full week of lying about the hotel, regaining strength and saying many prayers of thanks that the air here was merely pleasantly warm, not sweltering hot, Cora and Robert both judged that she was well enough to return to the pyramids complex.

"You must tell me," he'd made her promise that morning, "the second you feel ill or dizzy or even tired, and we'll come right back." She had nodded in agreement, determined that she could manage to explore the interior of at least one monument.

She was now sitting in front of him on a shared camel, Robert holding her carefully, trying to protect her arm from any bumps with the beast's swaying walk. Trekking toward the complex on the back of a camel while she felt tired and bit out of sorts seemed so familiar that she almost laughed.

But oh, how different today was! Today she had Robert holding her, she would have Robert at her side when she went in, she already had Robert telling her how eager he was to hear about the art she'd been hoping to see.

She had a husband who was, she believed, going to love her soon enough.

* * *

*Shepheard's was the other ritzy hotel in Cairo in the late 19th century and was a center of the city's English community. The Carnarvons often stayed here when they traveled to Egypt, but I thought Violet would be more attracted to Mena House, since the Prince of Wales had just been there. Shepheard's, however, was in the city center, and did not involve a long carriage ride from the train station.

AN: This brings us to the end of our story—thanks so much for taking the time to read and review, or even just read! I've loved having you all with me on this journey, and I hope I've inspired you to see Egypt sometime. (I know I've definitely inspired myself!)

I'm sure some of you are probably unsatisfied because Robert hasn't professed his love for Cora, but I really felt it was too soon here. Rest assured that he _does_ love her, she's happy, and he'll tell her within the next few months. :-)


End file.
